CVE-2023-33201 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.3) CWE-295 vulnerability in org.bouncycastle:bcprov-jdk18on. A fix is available for org.bouncycastle:bcprov-jdk18on — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Bouncy Castle For Java LDAP injection vulnerability
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2023-33201.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
Where this sits among everything scored
Real-World Exposure
org.bouncycastle:bcprov-jdk18on☕org.bouncycastle:bcprov-jdk15to18☕org.bouncycastle:bcprov-jdk14☕org.bouncycastle:bcprov-ext-jdk14☕org.bouncycastle:bcprov-ext-jdk15to18☕org.bouncycastle:bcprov-ext-jdk18on☕org.bouncycastle:bcprov-debug-jdk14☕org.bouncycastle:bcprov-debug-jdk15to18+4 moreReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Maven packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Bouncy Castle provides the X509LDAPCertStoreSpi.java class which can be used in conjunction with the CertPath API for validating certificate paths. Pre-1.73 the implementation did not check the X.500 name of any certificate, subject, or issuer being passed in for LDAP wild cards, meaning the presence of a wild car may lead to Information Disclosure.
A potential attack would be to generate a self-signed certificate with a subject name that contains special characters, e.g: CN=Subject*)(objectclass=. This will be included into the filter and provides the attacker ability to specify additional attributes in the search query. This can be exploited as a blind LDAP injection: an attacker can enumerate valid attribute values using the boolean blind injection technique. The exploitation depends on the structure of the target LDAP directory, as well as what kind of errors are exposed to the user.
Changes to the X509LDAPCertStoreSpi.java class add the additional checking of any X.500 name used to correctly escape wild card characters.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☕Maven | org.bouncycastle:bcprov-jdk18on | all versions | 1.74org.bouncycastle:bcprov-jdk18on:1.74 |
| ☕Maven | org.bouncycastle:bcprov-jdk15to18 | all versions | 1.74org.bouncycastle:bcprov-jdk15to18:1.74 |
| ☕Maven | org.bouncycastle:bcprov-jdk14 | ≥ 1.49&&< 1.74 | 1.74org.bouncycastle:bcprov-jdk14:1.74 |
| ☕Maven | org.bouncycastle:bcprov-ext-jdk14 | ≥ 1.49&&< 1.74 | 1.74org.bouncycastle:bcprov-ext-jdk14:1.74 |
| ☕Maven | org.bouncycastle:bcprov-ext-jdk15to18 | all versions | 1.74org.bouncycastle:bcprov-ext-jdk15to18:1.74 |
| ☕Maven | org.bouncycastle:bcprov-ext-jdk18on | all versions | 1.74org.bouncycastle:bcprov-ext-jdk18on:1.74 |
Affected Products
bc-javabouncycastleDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for org.bouncycastle:bcprov-jdk18on, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update org.bouncycastle:bcprov-jdk18on to 1.74 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-33201 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Assume what was exposed is already known: rotate any credential, token or key that the affected component could return, restrict the endpoint to callers that genuinely need it, and strip sensitive fields from responses and error output at the boundary rather than relying on the client not to read them.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| AMQ Broker 7.11.5 | bouncycastle | RHSA-2024:0278 |
| Cryostat 2 on RHEL 8 | cryostat-tech-preview/cryostat-grafana-dashboard-rhel8:2.4.0-2 | RHSA-2023:7669 |
| Red Hat AMQ Streams 2.5.0 | see advisory | RHSA-2023:5165 |
| Red Hat AMQ Streams 2.6.0 | bouncycastle | RHSA-2023:7678 |
| Red Hat AMQ Streams 2.7.0 | see advisory | RHSA-2024:3527 |
| Red Hat Fuse 7.12 | bouncycastle | RHSA-2023:3954 |
| Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform | org.bouncycastle/bcprov-jdk18on:1.76.0.redhat-00001 | RHSA-2023:5488 |
| Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7.4 for RHEL 8 | eap7-bouncycastle-0:1.76.0-4.redhat_00001.1.el8eap | RHSA-2023:5485 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2023-33201 in your dependencies?
Find it across Maven, including transitive dependencies.