CVE-2026-71225 PUBLISHED

Libkcapi: iv reuse in libkcapi one-shot symmetric cipher chunking causes cipher state reset across chunk boundaries

Assigner: redhat
Reserved: 05.08.2026 Published: 05.08.2026 Updated: 05.08.2026

A flaw was found in libkcapi. When performing one-shot symmetric cipher operations on large inputs (over 64 KiB) in stateful modes such as Counter (CTR) or Cipher Block Chaining (CBC), the library improperly reuses the Initialization Vector (IV) for each internal data chunk. A remote attacker could potentially exploit this by making an application that uses libkcapi process specially crafted large inputs. This can lead to a significant weakening of data confidentiality, as the repeated IV use can expose relationships in encrypted plaintext, and may also affect data integrity by causing incorrect cryptographic processing.

Metrics

CVSS Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:L/A:N
CVSS Score: 6.5

Product Status

Vendor Red Hat
Product Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10
Versions Default: affected
Vendor Red Hat
Product Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
Versions Default: affected
Vendor Red Hat
Product Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9
Versions Default: affected
Vendor Red Hat
Product Red Hat Hardened Images
Versions Default: affected
Vendor Red Hat
Product Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4
Versions Default: affected

Workarounds

To mitigate this issue, applications using libkcapi should avoid the one-shot symmetric cipher APIs for inputs exceeding 64 KiB when continuous-message semantics are critical. Instead, prefer the streaming interface for processing large messages, or ensure one-shot inputs remain below the internal chunking threshold to guarantee the IV is applied consistently throughout the operation.

Credits

  • This issue was discovered by Found by AISLE in partnership with Red Hat.

References

Problem Types

  • Use of Insufficiently Random Values CWE