CVE-2019-15947 — In Bitcoin Core 0

In Bitcoin Core 0.18.0, bitcoin-qt stores wallet.dat data unencrypted in memory. Upon a crash, it may dump a core file. If a user were to mishandle a core file, an attacker can reconstruct the user's wallet.dat file, including their private keys, via a grep "6231 0500&q

01What is this vulnerability?

In Bitcoin Core 0.18.0, bitcoin-qt stores wallet.dat data unencrypted in memory. Upon a crash, it may dump a core file. If a user were to mishandle a core file, an attacker can reconstruct the user's wallet.dat file, including their private keys, via a grep "6231 0500" command.

02Affected products

Vendor	Product	Versions
n	a / n/a	n/a

03Active exploitation status

Not currently listed on the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog. EPSS is the best forward-looking signal — see the EPSS row above.

04Recommended remediation

• Patch to a fixed version listed in the vendor advisory (see references below).
• Mitigate with WAF rules, network egress filters, or feature flags where the patch is not yet available.
• Hunt historical logs for exploitation indicators — see Detection signatures below.

05Technical details

For the full vendor write-up, exploit chains, and reference implementations, see the references list in section 09.

06Detection signatures

Ask SARA in chat to draft a starting detection for this CVE in your stack of choice.

07Related CVEs

No directly-cited follow-up CVEs in the KB record for this advisory. The references list in section 09 carries the vendor cross-references.

08Timeline

• Published: 2019-09-05T16:25:23.000Z
• Last modified: 2024-08-05T01:03:32.586Z

09References

• gist.github.com — https://gist.github.com/oxagast/50a121b2df32186e0c48411859d5861b
• en.bitcoin.it — https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Common_Vulnerabilities_and_Exposures#CVE-2019-15947
• github.com — https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues/16824
• security.gentoo.org — https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202009-18