Nordic Semiconductor ASA nRF54H20 3.2/3.3 MCUboot data authenticity

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability classified as very critical has been found in Nordic Semiconductor ASA nRF54H20 3.2/3.3. This affects an unknown function of the component MCUboot. This manipulation causes data authenticity. This vulnerability is tracked as CVE-2026-14296. The attack is restricted to local execution. No exploit exists.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in Nordic Semiconductor ASA nRF54H20 3.2/3.3. It has been declared as very critical. Affected by this vulnerability is some unknown processing of the component MCUboot. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a data authenticity vulnerability. The CWE definition for the vulnerability is CWE-345. The product does not sufficiently verify the origin or authenticity of data, in a way that causes it to accept invalid data. As an impact it is known to affect confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The summary by CVE is:

When using the Direct XIP update strategy, the main application image starts other cores (i.e. radio core), based on the currently active slot without additional verification. The MCUboot in the bare (upstream) configuration assumes that if there is at least a single slot for each image available, the system is bootable and continues the boot process. This may lead to a situation when MCUboot picks different slot for different images (i.e. (a) for the main application and (b) for the radio image), boots the main application (from slot (a)) that afterwards starts the radio image by providing an address of the unauthenticated slot ((a) instead of (b)).

The advisory is shared at docs.nordicsemi.com. This vulnerability is known as CVE-2026-14296 since 07/01/2026. The exploitation appears to be easy. An attack has to be approached locally. Neither technical details nor an exploit are publicly available. The price for an exploit might be around USD $0-$5k at the moment (estimation calculated on 09/07/2026).

There is no information about possible countermeasures known. It may be suggested to replace the affected object with an alternative product.

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Productinfo

Vendor

• Nordic Semiconductor ASA

Name

• nRF54H20

Version

• 3.2
• 3.3

CPE 2.3info

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CPE 2.2info

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Entryinfo

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