dbcve.org
KeycloakApplication · Redhat

CVE-2023-4918

HIGH · 8.8 CVSS v3.1 Published 2023-09-12
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
94/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
Remotely reachable Zero-click

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
A flaw was found in the Keycloak package, more specifically org.keycloak.userprofile. When a user registers itself through registration flow, the "password" and "password-confirm" field from the form will occur as regular user attributes. All users and clients with proper rights and roles are able to read users attributes, allowing a malicious user with minimal access to retrieve the users passwords in clear text, jeopardizing their environment.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis · high confidence

In Keycloak's user registration flow, password and password-confirm form fields are incorrectly stored as regular user attributes instead of being handled as sensitive fields. This allows any user or client with standard read permissions to retrieve other users' passwords in clear text through the user attributes API, providing a confidentiality breach with high impact.

MitigationConfigure Keycloak's user profile to exclude password fields from being stored as attributes, or upgrade to a patched Keycloak version that properly handles password fields as non-persistent form data during registration.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
KeycloakApplication
Affected:= 22.0.2

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Identify Keycloak server version
    Check the Keycloak server version through the admin console under Server Info > Version, or query the /health/ready endpoint, or inspect the startup logs. Compare the installed version to 22.0.2.
    Affected if The installed Keycloak version equals 22.0.2 exactly.
  2. Inspect user profile attribute configuration
    Using the admin console, navigate to Realm Settings > User Profile, or query the user-profile/configuration API endpoint. Review the attributes defined for the registration flow.
    Affected if Password or password-confirm fields are defined as persistable attributes in the user profile configuration.
  3. Verify password fields stored as user attributes
    Register a new test user through the registration UI with a known password. Then query the user attributes API for that user (GET /admin/realms/{realm}/users/{userId}) and inspect the attributes section.
    Affected if The response contains attributes named 'password' or 'password-confirm' with clear text values.
  4. Confirm attribute read permissions for standard users
    Using the admin console, review the permissions assigned to the 'user' or 'default-roles' realm roles. Check whether users with standard read permissions can query the user attributes API.
    Affected if Standard authenticated users have permission to read user attributes via the admin API or user endpoints.

You are affected if running Keycloak 22.0.2 and password fields from registration are being stored as user attributes that standard users can read.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

From vendor data
Mitigation available No clean upgrade yet — mitigate in the meantime
Mitigation

Configure Keycloak's user profile to exclude password fields from being stored as attributes, or upgrade to a patched Keycloak version that properly handles password fields as non-persistent form data during registration.

Fix this in Keycloak Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation4.0 h
  • Implementation8.0 h
  • Testing6.0 h
  • Review / QA4.0 h
22.0 hours of engineering $3,860
Get help mitigating

An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $6,176.

Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2023-4918 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.

Get it on GitHub Scan in the browser

References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2023-4918 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

Be the first to add a field note for this CVE — a mitigation you’ve verified, a version caveat, or a link to a working fix. Sign in above to contribute.

What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data