CVE-2026-71225
libkcapi: IV reuse in libkcapi one-shot symmetric cipher chunking causes cipher state reset across chunk boundaries
Severity
ModerateRed Hat Product Security
CVSS 3.1
Review impact separately from score.
Published · August 5, 2026
Updated · November 2, 2026
Description
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.
CVSS score applicability
The CVSS score(s) listed for this vulnerability do not reflect the associated product's status, and are included for informational purposes to better understand the severity of this vulnerability.
Mitigation
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.
CVSS / CWE
CVSS 3.1 · 6.5CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:L/A:N
CWE-330 · Use of Insufficiently Random Values