CVE-2026-103603
Unbounded HSS public key level count allows huge array allocation during signature verification
- State
- Published
- Severity
- 8.7 High
- Published
- Oct 2, 2026
- Updated
- Oct 2, 2026
- Reserved
- Sep 30, 2026
Description
Memory allocation with excessive size value in the HSS/LMS signature code (HssPublicKeyParameters, HssSignature) in Legion of the Bouncy Castle Inc. bc-csharp before 2.7.0 allows a remote unauthenticated attacker who can supply both an HSS public key and a signature to cause a denial of service through memory exhaustion via a public key encoding with an excessive level count, because the level count L read when parsing an HSS public key was not checked against the RFC 8554 maximum of 8, and signature parsing then allocated an array of L - 1 entries before reading any further signature data. A single verification can commit up to about 17 GB of memory or fail with an OutOfMemoryException.
Scores
| CVSS | Score | Vector | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4.0 | 8.7 High | CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N | bcorg |
Weaknesses
- CWE-789 Memory Allocation with Excessive Size Value
Affected Products
| Product | Versions |
|---|---|
bc-csharpLegion of the Bouncy Castle Inc. |
|
References
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