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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.9

CVE-2020-15522 json

Timing based private key exposure in Bouncy Castle

published 2021-05-20 5 y ago modified 2026-09-10 1 mo ago also GHSA-6xx3-rg99-gc3p , EUVD-2021-1608

cvss
5.9
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
1.5%
EPSS 1.5% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 74%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Bouncy Castle BC Java before 1.66, BC C# .NET before 1.8.7, BC-FJA before 1.0.1.2, 1.0.2.1, and BC-FNA before 1.0.1.1 have a timing issue within the EC math library that can expose information about the private key when an attacker is able to observe timing information for the generation of multiple deterministic ECDSA signatures.

Patch / fix

  • maven org.bouncycastle:bc-fips 1.0.2.1
  • maven org.bouncycastle:bcprov-ext-jdk15on 1.66
  • maven org.bouncycastle:bcprov-ext-jdk16 1.66
  • maven org.bouncycastle:bcprov-jdk14 1.66
  • maven org.bouncycastle:bcprov-jdk15 1.66
  • maven org.bouncycastle:bcprov-jdk15on 1.66
  • maven org.bouncycastle:bcprov-jdk15to18 1.66
  • maven org.bouncycastle:bcprov-jdk16 1.66
  • nuget BouncyCastle 1.8.7
  • bouncycastle bc-csharp 1.8.7
  • bouncycastle bouncy_castle_fips_.net_api 1.0.1.1
  • bouncycastle fips_java_api 1.0.1.2, 1.0.2.1
  • bouncycastle the_bouncy_castle_crypto_package_for_java 1.66
  • bouncycastle Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 1.68-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2020-15522

  • bouncycastle SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP3, SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP2 1.64-3.3.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2021:2163-1

  • bouncycastle openSUSE Tumbleweed 1.68-3.2
  • bouncycastle openSUSE Leap 15.3 1.64-3.3.1
  • bouncycastle openSUSE Leap 15.2 1.64-lp152.2.3.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:10661-1openSUSE-SU-2021:2163-1openSUSE-SU-2021:0940-1

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2020-15522 updated cvss 5.9

bouncycastle: Timing issue within the EC math library

  • Red Hat Integration Camel Quarkus 1 bouncycastle bouncycastle Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform Expansion Pack bouncycastle bouncycastle Red Hat OpenShift Application Runtimes bouncycastle bouncycastle Red Hat Single Sign-On 7 bouncycastle bouncycastle
    affected: no fix available
  • Red Hat support for Spring Boot bouncycastle bouncycastle
    affected: no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat EAP-XP 2.0.0 via EAP 7.3.x base
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2021:2755
  • Red Hat Fuse 7.8.1
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2021:1401
  • Red Hat Fuse 7.10
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2021:5134
  • Red Hat RHINT Camel-K 1.6.4
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2022:1029
  • Red Hat RHINT Camel-Q 2.2.1
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2022:1013
  • Red Hat build of Quarkus bouncycastle bouncycastle Red Hat Decision Manager 7 bouncycastle bouncycastle Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 bouncycastle Red Hat Fuse 7 karaf karaf, spring-boot-2 spring-boot-2 Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7 bouncycastle bouncycastle Red Hat Process Automation 7 bouncycastle bouncycastle
    +1 more products
    Red Hat Virtualization 4 bouncycastle, bouncycastle-pg, bouncycastle-tls, bouncycastle-mail, bouncycastle-pkix, bouncycastle-javadoc
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

1.52% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 74% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 5.9 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
NVD 2.0 4.3 AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N
GitHub 3.1 5.1 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
maven org.bouncycastle:bc-fips
<1.0.2.1
1.0.2.1
maven org.bouncycastle:bcprov-ext-jdk15on
<1.66
1.66
maven org.bouncycastle:bcprov-ext-jdk16
<1.66
1.66
maven org.bouncycastle:bcprov-jdk14
<1.66
1.66
maven org.bouncycastle:bcprov-jdk15
<1.66
1.66
maven org.bouncycastle:bcprov-jdk15on
<1.66
1.66
maven org.bouncycastle:bcprov-jdk15to18
<1.66
1.66
maven org.bouncycastle:bcprov-jdk16
<1.66
1.66
nuget BouncyCastle
<1.8.7
1.8.7

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-362 Concurrent Execution using Shared Resource with Improper Synchronization
  • CWE-203 Observable Discrepancy

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.