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Medium

HQC leaks private key information through secret-indexed GF(2^8) tables and a secret-dependent fixed-weight sampler

Type: advisorySource: Official CVE List1 source record

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.

Announced Group revision 1
Original source ↗

CVE-2026-18040

Primary source · Revision 1

Imported from structured advisory data. Source references identify upstream records or fields; verify affected versions and your deployed configuration.

Security context

Source reference: cve:CVE-2026-18040

BC-JAVA

Source reference: /containers/cna/affected/0/product

Affected versions
Not stated in this record
Fixed versions
Not stated in this record
Prerequisites
Not stated in this record

Structured affected-version data

Original package identities and version rules from this source.

[
  {
    "repo": "https://github.com/bcgit/bc-java",
    "vendor": "Legion of the Bouncy Castle Inc.",
    "modules": [
      "core"
    ],
    "product": "BC-JAVA",
    "versions": [
      {
        "status": "affected",
        "version": "1.73",
        "lessThan": "1.86",
        "versionType": "maven"
      }
    ],
    "platforms": [
      "all"
    ],
    "packageURL": "pkg:maven/org.bouncycastle/bcprov-jdk18on",
    "packageName": "bcprov",
    "programFiles": [
      "GF",
      "HQCEngine",
      "ReedSolomon",
      "FastFourierTransform"
    ],
    "collectionURL": "https://www.bouncycastle.org/download/bouncy-castle-java/",
    "defaultStatus": "unaffected"
  }
]
Related CVEs
CVE-2026-18040

Source reference: /cveMetadata/cveId

Publisher severity

medium

Source reference: /containers/cna/metrics

Event
#8767 · Revision 1
Added to Heist Feed
Publisher date
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