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🛡️ CVE-2023-33202 on Ubuntu — bouncycastle

⚪ Unknown ✅ No Known Exploit OSV
N/A
CVSS Score
0 Low4 Medium7 High9 Critical10

Description

Bouncy Castle for Java before 1.73 contains a potential Denial of Service (DoS) issue within the Bouncy Castle org.bouncycastle.openssl.PEMParser class. This class parses OpenSSL PEM encoded streams containing X.509 certificates, PKCS8 encoded keys, and PKCS7 objects. Parsing a file that has crafted ASN.1 data through the PEMParser causes an OutOfMemoryError, which can enable a denial of service attack. (For users of the FIPS Java API: BC-FJA 1.0.2.3 and earlier are affected; BC-FJA 1.0.2.4 is fixed.)

Distribution advisory

This page covers CVE-2023-33202 as tracked by Ubuntu, for the package bouncycastle. No fixed version has been recorded for this distribution yet.

How this vulnerability can be exploited

This issue can be reached with local access to the system, attack complexity is low, an attacker needs no privileges on the target. A user must be tricked into taking some action. The scope is unchanged, so the impact stays within the vulnerable component. Rated impact: confidentiality none, integrity none, availability high.

CVSS metrics in full

The score comes from this vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

  • Attack vector: Local — a local account, shell or session on the host is needed.
  • Attack complexity: Low — the attack works reliably, with no preparation.
  • Privileges required: None — an unauthenticated stranger can try it.
  • User interaction: Required — someone has to click, open or visit something.
  • Scope: Unchanged — the damage stays inside the vulnerable component.
  • Confidentiality impact: None.
  • Integrity impact: None.
  • Availability impact: High — total loss, or loss the attacker controls.

Weakness class

UBUNTU-CVE-2023-33202 is classified as CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption. A request can consume memory, CPU or storage without limit, exhausting capacity for everyone else.

Affected software

UBUNTU-CVE-2023-33202 is recorded against 1 package.

  • bouncycastle

Timeline and source

Published on 23 November 2023 and last revised on 19 March 2026. No public exploit is currently recorded for this entry. Record sourced from OSV.

References

ubuntu.com (Report)
github.com (Report)
bouncycastle.org (Report)
www.cve.org (Report)

Other advisories for this package

bouncycastle has other advisories on record. If you are patching this one, these are worth checking on the same host:

Same weakness in other software

These advisories are the same class of weakness (CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption) in other software:

CVE-2023-33202 on other distributions

Each distribution ships its own build and its own fixed version. Pick the one you run:

Details

Severity Unknown
CVSS Score N/A
CVSS Vector CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CWE N/A
Public Exploit ✅ No
Source OSV
Published 2023-11-23
Updated 2026-08-20
Modified 2026-03-19
Fix URL N/A

Affected Packages

Software From version Fixed in
bouncycastle — —

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ⓘ Data Notice: The information presented above has been compiled from publicly available internet sources. Boteraser aggregates this data solely for informational purposes and does not independently classify, evaluate, or endorse any findings about the vulnerabilities listed. The accuracy and completeness of this information is the sole responsibility of the original publishers. Boteraser and its operators accept no liability for any decisions made based on this data.

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