CVE-2026-40996: Spring Web Services: Inbound WS-Security allows RSA PKCS#1 v1.5 key transport by default

June 11, 2026 (updated August 21, 2026)

Wss4jSecurityInterceptor defaulted allowRSA15KeyTransportAlgorithm to true, overriding Apache WSS4J’s safer default for validation RequestData. Inbound WS-Security decryption could therefore accept RSA PKCS#1 v1.5 (rsa-1_5) encrypted key material unless operators explicitly reconfigured the flag.

Affected versions: Spring Web Services 5.0.0 through 5.0.1; 4.1.0 through 4.1.3; 4.0.0 through 4.0.18; 3.1.0 through 3.1.8.

References

github.com/advisories/GHSA-p7qj-2q5w-f9r7
nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-40996
spring.io/security/cve-2026-40996

Code Behaviors & Features

Detect and mitigate CVE-2026-40996 with GitLab Dependency Scanning

Secure your software supply chain by verifying that all open source dependencies used in your projects contain no disclosed vulnerabilities. Learn more about Dependency Scanning →