SECURELYN

CVE-2026-71885

In Bouncy Castle for Java before 1.86, the Messaging Layer Security (MLS, RFC 9420) implementation did not bind an X.509 credential to a LeafNode's signature_key. LeafNode.verify() checked a leaf's signature against the signature_key carried in the leaf itself, while the credential's X.509 certificate chain was stored but never parsed or validated, so the end-entity certificate's public key was never required to match signature_key as RFC 9420 sec. 5.3 requires. A party could therefore present another party's certificate as its credential while signing the leaf, and the enclosing KeyPackage,…

Scores

9.2
CVSS 9.2 out of 10, critical severity.
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

The facts

Published
3 October 2026
Last changed
6 October 2026
NVD status
Awaiting Analysis
Severity
Critical, CVSS 9.2 out of 10 (version 4.0)
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R…
Weakness
Known exploited
Not in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalogue in this build.
EPSS
0.2% chance of exploitation activity in the next 30 days (percentile 8).

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References