KeePass flaw allows retrieval of master password, PoC is public (CVE-2023-32784)
A vulnerability (CVE-2023-32784) in the open-source password manager KeePass can be exploited to retrieve the master password from the software’s memory, says the researcher who unearthed the flaw.
The bad news is that the vulnerability is still unfixed and that a PoC exploitation tool – aptly named KeePass 2.X Master Password Dumper – is publicly available, but the good news is that the password can’t be extracted remotely just by exploiting this flaw.
“If your computer is already infected by malware that’s running in the background with the privileges of your user, this finding doesn’t make your situation much worse,” says the researcher, who goes by the handle “vdohney”.
“If you have a reasonable suspicion that someone could obtain access to your computer and conduct forensic analysis, this could be bad. Worst case scenario is that the master password will be recovered, despite KeePass being locked or not running at all.”
About CVE-2023-32784
The issue affects SecureTextBoxEx, the software’s custom text box for entering the master password and other passwords during editing.
For the PoC tool to work, you need the process dump, swap file (pagefile.sys), hibernation file (hiberfil.sys) or a RAM dump of the entire system.
“The flaw exploited here is that for every character typed, a leftover string is created in memory. Because of how .NET works, it is nearly impossible to get rid of it once it gets created,” the researcher explained.
“For example, when ‘Password’ is typed, it will result in these leftover strings: •a, ••s, •••s, ••••w, •••••o, ••••••r, •••••••d. The POC application searches the dump for these patterns and offers a likely password character for each position in the password.” (That is, for every position except the first – a small hiccup for potential attackers.)
A fix is coming
The vulnerability affects the KeePass 2.X branch for Windows, and possibly for Linux and macOS. It has been fixed in the test versions of KeePass v2.54 – the official release is expected by July 2023.
It’s unfortunate that the PoC tool is already publicly available and the release of the new version so far off, but the risk of CVE-2023-32784 being abused in the wild is likely to be pretty low.
KeepassXC – a fork of KeePassX, which is a cross-platform port of KeePass – is not affected.
UPDATE (June 5, 2023, 04:40 a.m. ET):
KeePass v2.54 (for Windows) has been released, with a fix for CVE-2023-32784.