CVE-2023-0751 — When GELI reads a key file from standard input, it does not reuse the key file t

When GELI reads a key file from standard input, it does not reuse the key file to initialize multiple providers at once resulting in the second and subsequent devices silently using a NULL key as the user key file. If a user only uses a key file without a user passphrase, the mas

01What is this vulnerability?

When GELI reads a key file from standard input, it does not reuse the key file to initialize multiple providers at once resulting in the second and subsequent devices silently using a NULL key as the user key file. If a user only uses a key file without a user passphrase, the master key is encrypted with an empty key file allowing trivial recovery of the master key.

02Affected products

Vendor	Product	Versions
FreeBSD	FreeBSD	13.1-RELEASE, 12.4-RELEASE, 12.3-RELEASE

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: 2023-02-08T19:25:01.118Z
• Last modified: 2025-03-25T13:47:39.852Z

09References

• security.FreeBSD.org — https://security.FreeBSD.org/advisories/FreeBSD-SA-23:01.geli.asc