CVE-2026-18040

bouncycastle: In Bouncy Castle for Java before 1.86, HQC leaked secret-derived data through two side channels: its GF(2^8) arithmet...

CVE-2026-18040 is fixed in bouncycastle on 1 platform, first by DEBIAN-CVE-2026-18040, released October 3, 2026. It is not reported as exploited. Patch Radar priority: Routine.

Routine
CVSS
n/a
No vendor severity
Exploitation
None reported
No vendor assessment
CISA KEV
Not listed
Not in the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog
EPSS
0.0011
1st percentile

In Bouncy Castle for Java before 1.86, HQC leaked secret-derived data through two side channels: its GF(2^8) arithmetic used lookup tables indexed by field elements, making the cache line touched a function of the operand, and its fixed-weight support sampler left its duplicate scan as soon as a collision was found and stored accepted positions at a secret index. Both run on secret inputs during encapsulation and decapsulation, and the sampler re-expands the secret key from its seed on every decapsulation, so an attacker able to observe cache behaviour or decapsulation timing can recover information about the HQC private key. The field arithmetic is now table-free and the sampler branch-free within a batch of candidates, with output and randomness consumption unchanged.

Where it's fixed

ProductFixed inFixReleased
Linux
bouncycastle · Debian 14 1.86-1 DEBIAN-CVE-2026-18040 Oct 3, 2026
bouncycastle · opensuse-leap 16.0 1.86-160000.1.1 OPENSUSE-SU-2026:22169-1 Nov 7, 2026
bouncycastle · sles 15.6 1.86-150200.3.41.1 SUSE-SU-2026:4797-1 Nov 7, 2026
bouncycastle · sles 15.7 1.86-150200.3.41.1 SUSE-SU-2026:4797-1 Nov 7, 2026
bouncycastle · sles 16.0 1.86-160000.1.1 SUSE-SU-2026:24461-1 Nov 7, 2026

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