MLS X.509 credential not bound to the LeafNode signature key

CISA KEV is observed exploitation evidence. FIRST EPSS is a dated prediction of exploitation in the next 30 days. Missing scores are unknown. This collector requests predictions only for explicit CVE aliases in the public NuGet archive; Microsoft release views retain their existing prediction scope.

No collected risk observation for these identifiers. This does not establish absence of exploitation or a zero probability.

In Bouncy Castle for Java before 1.86, the Messaging Layer Security (MLS, RFC 9420) implementation did not bind an X.509 credential to a LeafNode's signature_key. LeafNode.verify() checked a leaf's signature against the signature_key carried in the leaf itself, while the credential's X.509 certificate chain was stored but never parsed or validated, so the end-entity certificate's public key was never required to match signature_key as RFC 9420 sec. 5.3 requires. A party could therefore present another party's certificate as its credential while signing the leaf, and the enclosing KeyPackage, with an unrelated key, and be accepted under that other party's identity through KeyPackage.verify() and the Group leaf-validation path. In a deployment that admits external commits without an independent credential-admission check, an unauthenticated attacker could be admitted under a victim's X.509 identity, evict the victim (resynchronization compares whole credentials rather than signing keys), derive the current epoch, decrypt subsequent group messages, and send messages accepted as the victim. TreeKEM.LeafNode now requires the end-entity certificate's subject public key, in the cipher suite's signature encoding, to equal signature_key for an X.509 credential and rejects the leaf otherwise, including an empty chain or a certificate whose key type does not match the cipher suite; certificate-chain and identity validation to a trust anchor remain the application's responsibility per RFC 9420 sec. 5.3.1. Deployments using only basic credentials are unaffected.

Source published

3 Oct 2026 08:51:53 UTC

Source modified

5 Oct 2026 16:01:11 UTC

Observed here

23 Oct 2026 15:48:27 UTC

Source terms

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CVSS 4.0 · 9.2 CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/U:Amber