High · CVSS 8.7CVE-2026-103603

Unbounded HSS public key level count allows huge array allocation during signature verification

Answer in brief

CVE-2026-103603 records a High severity (CVSS 8.7) vulnerability in Unbounded HSS public key level count allows huge array allocation during signature verification. The current sources do not mark it as known exploited. The current feed maps Legion of the Bouncy Castle Inc./BouncyCastle.Cryptography (generic). Check affected ranges and fixed versions before updating.

Analysis pending evidence review

HOL Guard separates source facts from reviewed analysis. See the methodology.

Published Oct 2, 2026Updated Oct 2, 2026Source checked Oct 2, 2026First seen by HOL Oct 2, 2026Material review Oct 2, 2026

Upstream Advisory

Key facts

Risk: High · CVSS 8.7
Exploitation: Not marked as known exploited
Affected software: 1 mapped package or product
Fix availability: Available

Why this deserves its current priority

CVSS is 8.7. The current sources do not mark it as known exploited. Treat this as a source-backed prioritization signal, not a statement about your environment.

Analysis status

Analysis pending evidence review

Factual feed record only; HOL analysis is not approved for indexing. Read the methodology.

Affected scope and exposure questions

The current feed maps Legion of the Bouncy Castle Inc./BouncyCastle.Cryptography (generic). Check affected ranges and fixed versions before updating.

Mapped affected packages and fixed versions
Package	Affected range	Fixed version
Legion of the Bouncy Castle Inc./BouncyCastle.Cryptographygeneric	>=0 <2.7.0	2.7.0

Recommended response

Check inventory. Check lockfiles and deployed manifests for Legion of the Bouncy Castle Inc./BouncyCastle.Cryptography.
Review the reported fix. Update Legion of the Bouncy Castle Inc./BouncyCastle.Cryptography to 2.7.0 if you use the affected versions. Test the change in a non-production environment first.

Evidence timeline and material changes

Published upstream
Oct 2, 2026
Evidence: source:cvelist:source_dates:source-dates:record
Source modified
Oct 2, 2026
Evidence: source:cvelist:source_dates:source-dates:record
First seen by HOL
Oct 2, 2026

Sources and claim methodology

Upstream source 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.

Quoted source text, attributed separately from HOL analysis.