CVE-2023-0751: GELI silently omits the keyfile if read from stdin

Severity: medium (CVSS 6.5 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.6% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2023-02-08 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-20

Description

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.

Affected products

FreeBSD: 12.3, 12.3-p1, 12.3-p2, 12.3-p3, 12.3-p4, 12.3-p5 (+12)

References

https://security.FreeBSD.org/advisories/FreeBSD-SA-23:01.geli.asc
https://security.FreeBSD.org/advisories/FreeBSD-SA-23:01.geli.asc
https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20230316-0004/

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