Moderate severity vulnerability that affects org.bouncycastle:bcprov-jdk14 and org.bouncycastle:bcprov-jdk15

Description

In the Bouncy Castle JCE Provider version 1.55 and earlier the primary engine class used for AES was AESFastEngine. Due to the highly table driven approach used in the algorithm it turns out that if the data channel on the CPU can be monitored the lookup table accesses are sufficient to leak information on the AES key being used. There was also a leak in AESEngine although it was substantially less. AESEngine has been modified to remove any signs of leakage (testing carried out on Intel X86-64) and is now the primary AES class for the BC JCE provider from 1.56. Use of AESFastEngine is now only recommended where otherwise deemed appropriate.

Basic information

Type
reviewed
Severity
medium
Advisory on GitHub
Open advisory ↗
Repository advisory
Source code
Not specified
Published (advisory)
2018-10-17 16:23:38 UTC
Updated
2025-09-12 19:13:07 UTC
GitHub reviewed
2020-06-16 21:30:37 UTC
NVD published
2018-06-04

EPSS Score

Score Percentile
1.12% 77.91%

CVSS Scores

Base score Version Severity Vector
5.3 3.0
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:L)
Some sensitive info could get out, but not a total data dump.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.

Identifiers

Credits

  • AndrzejBiernacki2010 (analyst)

Affected packages (3)

Vulnerable version ranges and first patched releases as published by GitHub.

Ecosystem Package Vulnerable range First patched Vulnerable functions
maven org.bouncycastle:bcprov-jdk14 < 1.56 1.56
maven org.bouncycastle:bcprov-jdk15 < 1.56 1.56
maven org.bouncycastle:bcprov-jdk15on < 1.56 1.56

References

cvelogic Threat Intelligence