Unbounded HSS public key level count allows huge array allocation during signature verification
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.
CVE-2026-103603
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-2026-103603
bc-csharp
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-csharp",
"vendor": "Legion of the Bouncy Castle Inc.",
"product": "bc-csharp",
"versions": [
{
"status": "affected",
"version": "0",
"lessThan": "2.7.0",
"versionType": "semver"
}
],
"packageName": "BouncyCastle.Cryptography",
"programFiles": [
"crypto/src/pqc/crypto/lms/HSSPublicKeyParameters.cs",
"crypto/src/pqc/crypto/lms/HSSSignature.cs"
],
"collectionURL": "https://www.nuget.org/packages/BouncyCastle.Cryptography",
"defaultStatus": "unaffected"
}
]- Related CVEs
- CVE-2026-103603
Source reference:
/cveMetadata/cveId
Publisher severity
high
Source reference: /containers/cna/metrics
- Event
- #8073 · Revision 1
- Added to Heist Feed
- Publisher date