{"cve":"CVE-2026-18040","nvd":{"published":"2026-10-03T09:17:04.360","modified":"2026-10-06T14:49:40.823","status":"Awaiting Analysis","description":"In Bouncy Castle for Java before 1.86, HQC leaked secret-derived data through two side channels: its GF(2^8) arithmetic used lookup tables indexed by field elements, making the cache line touched a function of the operand, and its fixed-weight support sampler left its duplicate scan as soon as a collision was found and stored accepted positions at a secret index. Both run on secret inputs during encapsulation and decapsulation, and the sampler re-expands the secret key from its seed on every decapsulation, so an attacker able to observe cache behaviour or decapsulation timing can recover information about the HQC private key. The field arithmetic is now table-free and the sampler branch-free within a batch of candidates, with output and randomness consumption unchanged.","cvss_v4":{"vector":"CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:H/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:N/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/U:Amber","score":5.9},"cvss_v3":null,"cwes":["CWE-208"],"references":["https://github.com/bcgit/bc-java/commit/283acd81048ec9e951032525279d3b58aaf0bb03","https://github.com/bcgit/bc-java/wiki/CVE%E2%80%902026%E2%80%9018040"],"products":[],"source":"nvd","synced_at":"2026-10-19T22:57:46.668721662+00:00"},"epss":{"cve":"CVE-2026-18040","score":0.00107,"percentile":0.01142,"date":"2026-10-25"},"kev":null,"osv":[],"attribution":["This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD.","EPSS scores: FIRST Exploit Prediction Scoring System, https://www.first.org/epss","Known exploited vulnerabilities: CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog, https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog","Package advisories: OSV (https://osv.dev), from the GitHub Advisory Database, PyPA, Go, RustSec and other ecosystem databases, under CC-BY 4.0 or CC0","CVE records: the CVE Program's CVE List (https://www.cve.org), under its terms of use (https://www.cve.org/Legal/TermsOfUse). CVE is a registered trademark of The MITRE Corporation; this product is not affiliated with the CVE Program."]}