Caliptra Core Runtime up to 2.0.1/2.1.0 aes_256_gcm_update missing cryptographic step

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as problematic, has been found in Caliptra Core Runtime up to 2.0.1/2.1.0. The affected element is an unknown function of the component aes_256_gcm_update. The manipulation leads to missing cryptographic step. This vulnerability is referenced as CVE-2026-6458. Remote exploitation of the attack is possible. No exploit is available. It is advisable to upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as problematic, has been found in Caliptra Core Runtime up to 2.0.1/2.1.0. This issue affects an unknown functionality of the component aes_256_gcm_update. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a missing cryptographic step vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to CWE-325. The product does not implement a required step in a cryptographic algorithm, resulting in weaker encryption than advertised by the algorithm. Impacted is confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The summary by CVE is:

Missing cryptographic step in Caliptra Core Firmware (aes_256_gcm_update module) results in an incorrect GCM authentication tag. When the streaming AES-256-GCM API is used with empty AAD, the hardware GHASH accumulator state is not saved after the first update call, causing the final tag to exclude the first batch of processed ciphertext. Ciphertext produced by that call may be modified without the tag reflecting the change. This issue affects Core Runtime Firmware: from 2.0.0 through 2.0.1, 2.1.0.

The weakness was published with NVIDIA Offensive Security Research as GHSA-834g-h5x6-2hqr. It is possible to read the advisory at github.com. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2026-6458 since 04/16/2026. The exploitation is known to be difficult. The attack may be initiated remotely. The technical details are unknown and an exploit is not publicly available. The attack technique deployed by this issue is T1600 according to MITRE ATT&CK.

Upgrading to version 2.0.2 or 2.1.1 eliminates this vulnerability.

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Productinfo

Vendor

• Caliptra

Name

• Core Runtime

Version

• 2.0
• 2.0.0
• 2.0.1
• 2.1.0

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CPE 2.2info

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