CVE-2026-18036
Public on 2026-10-02
Modified on 2026-10-03
Description
In Bouncy Castle for Java before 1.86, NTRU reduced secret values with the % operator in three helpers whose reference implementations are deliberately division-free, so each reduction was carried out by an integer division whose latency depends on the secret operand. Polynomial.modQ divided by a variable divisor, which a compiler cannot strength-reduce to a multiply the way it can a constant one, so it emitted a division on every call including on the decapsulation path where the dividend derives from the private key; Polynomial.mod3 and NTRUSampling.mod3 divided the secret key polynomials f and g during key generation, the message polynomials r and m during encapsulation, and coefficients recovered during decapsulation. An attacker able to measure that timing can recover information about the NTRU private key. modQ now masks, which is exact because q is always a power of two, and mod3 uses the reference implementation's division-free fold and select; the results are unchanged.
Severity
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CVSS v3 Base Score
See breakdown
Affected Packages
| Platform | Package | Release Date | Advisory | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon Linux 2023 | bouncycastle | Not Affected |
CVSS Scores
| Score Type | Score | Vector | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon Linux | CVSSv3 | 5.9 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N |