CVE-2020-15522 Timing based private key exposure in Bouncy Castle
Timing side-channel in EC math library allows attackers to recover private keys by observing signature generation times.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2020-15522?
CVE-2020-15522 is a medium-severity vulnerability in n/a, published on 20 May 2021. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Official description
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.
Weakness: CWE-362
Which versions are affected by CVE-2020-15522?
18 open source packages ship an affected version, including org.bouncycastle:bc-fips, org.bouncycastle:bcprov-ext-jdk15on and org.bouncycastle:bcprov-ext-jdk16. It affects 4 products.
| Package | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
org.bouncycastle:bc-fips Maven | All versions | 1.0.2.1 |
org.bouncycastle:bc-fips Maven | All versions | 1.0.2.1 |
org.bouncycastle:bcprov-ext-jdk15on Maven | All versions | 1.66 |
org.bouncycastle:bcprov-ext-jdk15on Maven | All versions | 1.66 |
org.bouncycastle:bcprov-ext-jdk16 Maven | All versions | 1.66 |
org.bouncycastle:bcprov-ext-jdk16 Maven | All versions | 1.66 |
12 more packages
org.bouncycastle:bcprov-jdk14 Maven | All versions | 1.66 |
org.bouncycastle:bcprov-jdk14 Maven | All versions | 1.66 |
org.bouncycastle:bcprov-jdk15 Maven | All versions | 1.66 |
org.bouncycastle:bcprov-jdk15 Maven | All versions | 1.66 |
org.bouncycastle:bcprov-jdk15on Maven | All versions | 1.66 |
org.bouncycastle:bcprov-jdk15on Maven | All versions | 1.66 |
org.bouncycastle:bcprov-jdk15to18 Maven | All versions | 1.66 |
org.bouncycastle:bcprov-jdk15to18 Maven | All versions | 1.66 |
org.bouncycastle:bcprov-jdk16 Maven | All versions | 1.66 |
org.bouncycastle:bcprov-jdk16 Maven | All versions | 1.66 |
BouncyCastle NuGet | All versions | 1.8.7 |
BouncyCastle NuGet | All versions | 1.8.7 |
Linux distribution packages (4)
bouncycastle SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP2 | All versions | 1.64-3.3.1 |
bouncycastle SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP3 | All versions | 1.64-3.3.1 |
bouncycastle openSUSE:Leap 15.2 | All versions | 1.64-lp152.2.3.1 |
bouncycastle openSUSE:Leap 15.3 | All versions | 1.64-3.3.1 |
Products include Bouncycastle Bc-Csharp, Bouncycastle Bouncy Castle Fips .Net Api, Bouncycastle Fips Java Api, Bouncycastle the Bouncy Castle Crypto Package for Java.
How do I fix CVE-2020-15522?
Upgrade org.bouncycastle:bc-fips to 1.0.2.1 or later.
Is CVE-2020-15522 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2020-15522 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in n/a
- CVE-2026-63569 MTI/A0 DHAgreement does not validate the peer's ephemeral value
- CVE-2026-103600 Unbounded ASN.1 nesting depth causes process-terminating stack overflow
- CVE-2026-103603 Unbounded HSS public key level count allows huge array allocation during signature verification
- CVE-2026-103604 Quadratic-time escaping when converting X.509 distinguished names to strings
- CVE-2026-16000 KCcmBlockCipher (DSTU 7624 CCM) tag not bound to nonce when no associated data is used
Sources
Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2020-15522, GHSA-6xx3-rg99-gc3p, OESA-2021-1301, SUSE-SU-2021:2163-1, UBUNTU-CVE-2020-15522, openSUSE-SU-2021:0940-1 and 2 more.