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TI-2026-11430 Aliases CVE-2026-13505GHSA-98j2-6v39-78w8

Zeroisation of sensitive key material on garbage collection relies on finalization

Priority MEDIUM 44CWE-772Published · Updated

Key facts

Attack vector
Network
Privileges required
None
User interaction
None
Attack complexity
Low
Attack requirements
None
Impact type
Denial of service
Confidentiality · integrity · availability
None · None · High
Fix status
Fixed

Attack profile from CVSS 4.0 · CNA. Fix status from CNA and GitHub. Impact type from CWE-772.

Summary

In Bouncy Castle for Java FIPS (BC-FJA) before bc-fips 1.0.2.7 (1.0.X series), 2.0.2 (2.0.X series) and 2.1.3 (2.1.X series), sensitive key material held by the AES and DESede engines, the SP 800-90A DRBGs, SymmetricSecretKey and the PBKD and scrypt parameter classes was zeroised on garbage collection by overriding Object.finalize. Finalization runs at an unspecified time and in an unspecified order and is serviced by a single finalizer thread, so where objects carrying a finalizer are allocated faster than that thread retires them the pending-finalization queue grows without bound: disposal falls arbitrarily far behind, which can contribute to an OutOfMemoryError under load, and the key material those objects hold stays resident in the heap for as long as they are queued, defeating the purpose of the zeroisation. The behaviour was not a problem on Java 8 or Java 11; it is later JVMs, on which finalization has been deprecated and progressively de-emphasised, where it becomes one. Disposal of these classes now runs from a java.lang.ref.Cleaner registered in the multi-release jdk1.9 overlay, so on Java 9 and later it no longer depends on the finalizer being scheduled. Bouncy Castle for Java (bcprov) and Bouncy Castle for Java LTS are not affected, as neither implements the finalizer-based zeroisation scheme.

Why it matters now

Exploitation None reported CISA SSVC · not in CISA KEV
EPSS 0.00428 37th percentileScored 2026-11-07
Fix Fixed BC-FJA (Legion of the Bouncy Castle Inc.): 1.0.2.7, 2.0.2, 2.1.3org.bouncycastle:bc-fips (Maven): 1.0.2.7, 2.0.2, 2.1.3

SSVC decision points

CISA ADP · SSVC 2.0.3

Exploitation
None
Automatable
Yes
Technical impact
Partial

The decision (Track, Attend, Act) also depends on your mission and well-being impact; see CISA's SSVC guide.

Affected products

VendorProductAffected versionsFixed inStatusSource
Legion of the Bouncy Castle Inc.BC-FJA1.0.0 to before 1.0.2.7; 2.0.0 to before 2.0.2; 2.1.0 to before 2.1.31.0.2.7, 2.0.2, 2.1.3Patch availableCNA
—org.bouncycastle:bc-fips (Maven)before 1.0.2.71.0.2.7Patch availableGHSA-98j2-6v39-78w8
—org.bouncycastle:bc-fips (Maven)2.0.0 to before 2.0.22.0.2Patch availableGHSA-98j2-6v39-78w8
—org.bouncycastle:bc-fips (Maven)2.1.0 to before 2.1.32.1.3Patch availableGHSA-98j2-6v39-78w8
  • BC-FJA VendorLegion of the Bouncy Castle Inc. Affected 1.0.0 to before 1.0.2.7; 2.0.0 to before 2.0.2; 2.1.0 to before 2.1.3 Fixed in 1.0.2.7, 2.0.2, 2.1.3 Patch available CNA
  • org.bouncycastle:bc-fips (Maven) Vendor— Affected before 1.0.2.7 Fixed in 1.0.2.7 Patch available GHSA-98j2-6v39-78w8
  • org.bouncycastle:bc-fips (Maven) Vendor— Affected 2.0.0 to before 2.0.2 Fixed in 2.0.2 Patch available GHSA-98j2-6v39-78w8
  • org.bouncycastle:bc-fips (Maven) Vendor— Affected 2.1.0 to before 2.1.3 Fixed in 2.1.3 Patch available GHSA-98j2-6v39-78w8

Remediation

  • Fix · CNA BC-FJA (Legion of the Bouncy Castle Inc.) Fixed in 1.0.2.7, 2.0.2, 2.1.3
  • Fix · GHSA-98j2-6v39-78w8 org.bouncycastle:bc-fips (Maven) Fixed in 1.0.2.7 Advisory →
  • Fix · GHSA-98j2-6v39-78w8 org.bouncycastle:bc-fips (Maven) Fixed in 2.0.2 Advisory →
  • Fix · GHSA-98j2-6v39-78w8 org.bouncycastle:bc-fips (Maven) Fixed in 2.1.3 Advisory →

Vendor assessments

Red Hat

Red Hat rating: Important. Red Hat's page for this CVE →

Not affected: 1 product
  • Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform Expansion Pack

Timeline

  1. 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2026-13505
  2. 2026-10-03 Alias added: GHSA-98j2-6v39-78w8

References

  • TI-2018-15967 Legion of the Bouncy Castle Legion of the Bouncy Castle Java Cryptography APIs 1.58 up to… CVSS 3.1CRITICAL 9.8
  • TI-2017-09736 BouncyCastle JCE TLS Bleichenbacher/ROBOT CVSS 3.0HIGH 7.5
  • TI-2026-42545 MTI/A0 DH agreement exponentiates unvalidated peer value CVSS 4.0CRITICAL 9.3
  • TI-2026-42533 JSSE hostname verifier CN-fallback enabled by default despite documented opt-in CVSS 4.0CRITICAL 9.3
  • TI-2026-41816 Stapled OCSP response accepted without binding to the checked certificate CVSS 4.0CRITICAL 9.3
  • TI-2026-07701 Name Constraints bypass via trailing dot in rfc822Name and URI CVSS 4.0CRITICAL 9.3
See all 109 →

Sources