Disclosure summary
In Bouncy Castle for Java before 1.86, NTRU reduced secret values with the % operator in three helpers whose reference implementations are deliberately division-free, so each reduction was carried out by an integer division whose latency depends on the secret operand. Polynomial.modQ divided by a variable divisor, which a compiler cannot strength-reduce to a multiply the way it can a constant one, so it emitted a division on every call including on the decapsulation path where the dividend derives from the private key; Polynomial.mod3 and NTRUSampling.mod3 divided the secret key polynomials f and g during key generation, the message polynomials r and m during encapsulation, and coefficients recovered during decapsulation. An attacker able to measure that timing can recover information about the NTRU private key. modQ now masks, which is exact because q is always a power of two, and mod3 uses the reference implementation's division-free fold and select; the results are unchanged.
Source-reported weakness categories
CWE-208
Source-specific records & product guidance
Sources retain their own attribution and scoring. Follow the original record to confirm affected versions, fixed releases, and configuration conditions.
NIST National Vulnerability Database · NVD-CVE-2026-18036
Open original source · Updated Oct 02, 2026
Only CPE matches marked vulnerable=true are indexed. AND/OR platform conditions must be checked in the original NVD record.
Original records & references
PUBLISHED 2026-10-02T04:17:01-04:00
MODIFIED 2026-10-02T14:17:03-04:00
INGESTED 2026-10-06T11:45:14-04:00