The minimum fix avoids changes needed, thus, a bit confusing as a whole.
Here are better changes:

Minimum fix is:

Pushed: rG8b6de59ad880: agent: Raise GPG_ERR_BAD_SECKEY when p >= q for RSA key.

While I pushed the change of libgcrypt, I'd like to apply following change to GnuPG.
This is more kind than GPG_ERR_BAD_PASSPHRASE by gcry_pk_testkey failure.

I retract my patch in T8171#215603

@m.eik gave us this link: https://github.com/ProtonMail/go-crypto/issues/184

Setting to low because this has never been a problem in the last 30 or 35 years. A check to help pinpointing bad keys is however a good idea.

I sent a patch to gcrypt-devel mailing list for the preparation of the change of RSA secret key checking.
If enabled, wrong RSA secret key (wrong means: under the Libre/OpenPGP specification) is rejected at import when gpg-agent calls gcry_pk_test_key.

BTW, LibrePGP also demands p < q in "Algorithm-Specific Part for RSA Keys".

For OpenSSH, ssh-agent spec. defines p, q, and qInv.
FIPS has: FIPS 186-5 and SP 800-56Br2.

existing standards

CRT is used with GnuPG. In libgcrypt, pk_sign and pk_decrypt don't require P, Q, and U in a key (it's optional), but pk_test_key does.

Du we have any information on whether the CRT is used and whether u et al. is also wrong? For example due to an OpenSSL generated key?

The reporter informed us that the possible DoS has CVE number assigned:
CVE-2025-69913

Fixed in 1.12.1.

Fixed in 1.12.0.

FWIW: Okay, gmime is still a wrapper around gpgme. After decryption it has the ability to get the used session key from the gpgme result structure. Thus, I have been on the wrong trail. The actual problem is not gpgme but more GnuPG's use of Libgcrypt or an actual regression in Libgcrypt. Well, Friday 13th.

Any hints where to find the actual crypto code which uses libgcrypt?

Maintainer of the FreeBSD notmuch port/package here. The steps below consistently trigger the problem on FreeBSD 16.0 (unreleased main branch), but there are no problems on FreeBSD 15.0. All my testing was on amd64.

Any hints where to find the actual crypto code which uses libgcrypt?

@thesamesam Thanks a lot.
I managed to replicate the failure somehow (for me, it fails at the importing the key).

I've attached notmuch-bug.log with debug-level guru commented out for gpg-agent:

I can reproduce it using Stuart's script from https://lists.gnupg.org/pipermail/gcrypt-devel/2026-February/006031.html.

Please tell us the information of your environment.
What the versions of gpg and gpg-agent?

We have seen the same thing on amd64 (x86_64) linux: https://bugs.gentoo.org/969501

No, OpenBSD's implementation of POSIX semaphore is different to NetBSD.
(It doesn't support PSHARED=1.)

Possibly, it is related to the NetBSD failure of T8065.
If importing the secret key fails (which invokes gpg-agent), decryption cannot be succeeded.
I will check OpenBSD implementation of POSIX semaphore, if it's similar to NetBSD one.

According to the ML @gniibe tried to replicate the problem without success.

Will go into 1.12.1

Thanks. Will go int the next version.