Bug 2545489 (CVE-2026-97873)

Summary: CVE-2026-97873 org.bouncycastle:bcprov-jdk18on: org.bouncycastle:bcprov-lts8on: bouncycastle: org.bouncycastle:bcprov-jdk15on: bouncycastle: Denial of Service via unbounded iteration count in password-based encryption
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: unspecifiedCC: anthomas, ant, anujha, aschwart, asoldano, aszczucz, ataylor, bbaranow, bmaxwell, boliveir, bstansbe, cescoffi, csuconic, dbruscin, dfreiber, dlofthou, drichtar, drow, dschmidt, ehelms, ehugonne, ewittman, fmariani, fmongiar, gbenhaim, ggainey, gmalinko, gsmet, gtully, ikhan, istudens, ivassile, iweiss, janstey, jburrell, jlanda, jmartisk, jnethert, jpasqual, jsherman, juwatts, jwon, kshier, kvanderr, manderse, mcarlett, mdellweg, mhulan, mosmerov, mposolda, msvehla, nipatil, niyer, nmoumoul, nwallace, olubyans, osousa, ozzy, pantinor, pberan, pcreech, pdelbell, pesilva, pjindal, pmackay, rbobbitt, rchan, rgemmell, rgodfrey, rguimara, rhel-process-autobot, rkubis, rmartinc, rstancel, rstepani, sbiarozk, sdawley, simaishi, smallamp, ssilvert, stcannon, sthorger, tbish, tcunning, thjenkin, tlavocat, tmalecek, twaugh, varjain, vdosoudi, vkumar, vmuzikar, watson-tool-maintainers, yfang, yguenane
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: Security
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Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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A flaw was found in Bouncy Castle. In its legacy password-based encryption implementations, iteration counts parsed from untrusted cryptographic inputs are processed without enforcing an upper limit. A remote attacker could exploit this vulnerability by supplying crafted parameters with an excessively large iteration count, consuming disproportionate processing resources and causing a Denial of Service (DoS).
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Bug Depends On: 2550550, 2550551, 2550552    
Bug Blocks:    

Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-10-03 08:31:21 UTC 
In Bouncy Castle for Java before 1.86, the raw JCA provider's legacy PBES1 (PKCS#5 scheme 1) and PKCS#12 PBE families ran their password-based key derivation with an iteration count taken from untrusted input without bounding it, so a small input could dictate an arbitrary amount of work before anything could be verified. The AlgorithmParameters implementations (PKCS12PBE and its object identifier aliases, and PBKDF1) accepted any count from an encoded PKCS12PBEParams or PBEParameter, narrowing a value beyond the int range with intValue(), and every Cipher, Mac and SecretKeyFactory in these families derived with whatever count it was given, including one decoded by another provider's AlgorithmParameters, as when javax.crypto.EncryptedPrivateKeyInfo.getKeySpec() decrypts a PKCS#12 PBE-protected private key with BC. Both the parameter parse and the derivations now reject a negative or over-limit count under the org.bouncycastle.pbe.max_iteration_count property (default 10,000,000) that already bounded PBKDF2 (CVE-2026-17508), and the parse rejects a count beyond the int range rather than narrowing it. This issue also affects Bouncy Castle for Java LTS before 2.73.13.