Cyber Resilience

CVE-2026-40097

Smallstep Step-Ca 0.24.0 – 0.30.0

Published
10 April 2026
Modified
27 April 2026
Patch / advisory
View advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 3.7
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
EPSS Score 0.0018 8th percentile
Risk Priority 31 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2026-40097 is a low-severity Improper Validation of Array Index (CWE-129) vulnerability in Smallstep Step-Ca. Its CVSS base score is 3.7 (Low).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked at the 8th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

A05:2025 Injection

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

Step CA is an online certificate authority for secure, automated certificate management for DevOps. From 0.24.0 to before 0.30.0-rc3, an attacker can trigger an index out-of-bounds panic in Step CA by sending a crafted attestation key (AK) certificate with an…

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empty Extended Key Usage (EKU) extension during TPM device attestation. When processing a device-attest-01 ACME challenge using TPM attestation, Step CA validates that the AK certificate contains the tcg-kp-AIKCertificate Extended Key Usage OID. During this validation, the EKU extension value is decoded from its ASN.1 representation and the first element is checked. A crafted certificate could include an EKU extension that decodes to an empty sequence, causing the code to panic when accessing the first element of the empty slice. This vulnerability is only reachable when a device-attest-01 ACME challenge with TPM attestation is configured. Deployments not using TPM device attestation are not affected. This vulnerability is fixed in 0.30.0-rc3.

CWE(s)
CWE-129

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1068 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation Privilege Escalation
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to elevate privileges.
attack.mitre.org →
T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application Initial Access
Adversaries may attempt to exploit a weakness in an Internet-facing host or system to initially access a network.
attack.mitre.org →
T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution Execution
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in client applications to execute code.
attack.mitre.org →
T1210 Exploitation of Remote Services Lateral Movement
Adversaries may exploit remote services to gain unauthorized access to internal systems once inside of a network.
attack.mitre.org →
T1211 Exploitation for Stealth Stealth
Adversaries may exploit vulnerabilities to evade detection by hiding activity, suppressing logging, or operating within trusted or unmonitored components.
attack.mitre.org →
T1212 Exploitation for Credential Access Credential Access
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to collect credentials.
attack.mitre.org →
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2026-30836Same product: Smallstep Step-Ca
CVE-2023-52594Shared CWE-129
CVE-2024-38562Shared CWE-129
CVE-2024-36015Shared CWE-129
CVE-2025-10158Shared CWE-129
CVE-2023-52728Shared CWE-129
CVE-2026-32682Shared CWE-129
CVE-2025-54650Shared CWE-129
CVE-2026-57264Shared CWE-129
CVE-2025-39728Shared CWE-129

Affected Assets

smallstep
step-ca
0.30.0 · 0.24.0 — 0.30.0

Mitigating Controls

Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

PR.PS-06 mostly match
prevents

Secure SDLC practices directly require input validation and bounds checking that prevent improper array indexing.

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

A.8.29 Security testing in development and acceptance mostly match
finds

Security testing in development can detect out-of-bounds array access but does not prevent the weakness by itself.

A.8.25 Secure development life cycle partial match
prevents

Secure development lifecycle mandates input validation and bounds checking that directly prevents improper array indexing.

A.8.26 Application security requirements partial match
prevents

Application security requirements include validation of untrusted input used for indexing or addressing memory structures.

A.8.27 Secure system architecture and engineering principles partial match
prevents

Secure architecture principles encourage defensive coding patterns that reduce index-related vulnerabilities.

A.8.28 Secure coding partial match
prevents

Secure coding standards explicitly require bounds checking and validation of array indices derived from untrusted data.

References