diff --git a/include/linux/kernel.h b/include/linux/kernel.h
index a890428bcc1a..fe6efb24d151 100644
--- a/include/linux/kernel.h
+++ b/include/linux/kernel.h
@@ -285,7 +285,7 @@ static inline char *hex_byte_pack_upper(char *buf, u8 byte)
 	return buf;
 }
 
-extern int hex_to_bin(char ch);
+extern int hex_to_bin(unsigned char ch);
 extern int __must_check hex2bin(u8 *dst, const char *src, size_t count);
 extern char *bin2hex(char *dst, const void *src, size_t count);
 
diff --git a/lib/hexdump.c b/lib/hexdump.c
index 9301578f98e8..369420ce553a 100644
--- a/lib/hexdump.c
+++ b/lib/hexdump.c
@@ -22,15 +22,33 @@ EXPORT_SYMBOL(hex_asc_upper);
  *
  * hex_to_bin() converts one hex digit to its actual value or -1 in case of bad
  * input.
+ *
+ * This function is used to load cryptographic keys, so it is coded in such a
+ * way that there are no conditions or memory accesses that depend on data.
+ *
+ * Explanation of the logic:
+ * (ch - '9' - 1) is negative if ch <= '9'
+ * ('0' - 1 - ch) is negative if ch >= '0'
+ * we "and" these two values, so the result is negative if ch is in the range
+ *	'0' ... '9'
+ * we are only interested in the sign, so we do a shift ">> 8"; note that right
+ *	shift of a negative value is implementation-defined, so we cast the
+ *	value to (unsigned) before the shift --- we have 0xffffff if ch is in
+ *	the range '0' ... '9', 0 otherwise
+ * we "and" this value with (ch - '0' + 1) --- we have a value 1 ... 10 if ch is
+ *	in the range '0' ... '9', 0 otherwise
+ * we add this value to -1 --- we have a value 0 ... 9 if ch is in the range '0'
+ *	... '9', -1 otherwise
+ * the next line is similar to the previous one, but we need to decode both
+ *	uppercase and lowercase letters, so we use (ch & 0xdf), which converts
+ *	lowercase to uppercase
  */
-int hex_to_bin(char ch)
+int hex_to_bin(unsigned char ch)
 {
-	if ((ch >= '0') && (ch <= '9'))
-		return ch - '0';
-	ch = tolower(ch);
-	if ((ch >= 'a') && (ch <= 'f'))
-		return ch - 'a' + 10;
-	return -1;
+	unsigned char cu = ch & 0xdf;
+	return -1 +
+		((ch - '0' +  1) & (unsigned)((ch - '9' - 1) & ('0' - 1 - ch)) >> 8) +
+		((cu - 'A' + 11) & (unsigned)((cu - 'F' - 1) & ('A' - 1 - cu)) >> 8);
 }
 EXPORT_SYMBOL(hex_to_bin);