Summary
Uptime Kuma has Persistentent User Sessions
Attackers with access to a users' device can gain persistent account access.
This is caused by missing verification of Session Tokens after password changes and/or elapsed inactivity-periods.
Details
uptime-kuma sets JWT tokens for users after successful authentication.
These tokens have the following design flaws:
- After successful login, a JWT token and it is stored in
sessionStorageorlocalStorage.
Which of the two is decided based on theRemember Mebutton.
The users' token is valid without any time limitation, even after long periods of inactivity.
This increases the risk of session hijacking if, for example, a user forgets to log off and leaves the PC. - sessions are only deleted on the client side after a user loggs out, meaning a local attacker could reuse said token with deep system access over the browser
- If a user changes a password
- any previously logged in clients are not logged out
- previously issued tokens remained valid forever
These flaws allow user cookies to remain valid even after changing passwords or being inactive, posing a high security risk.
POC
Password resets not deactivating cookies
- Log in.
- Note the user cookie.
- Change your password.
- Attempt to log in again with the same cookie.
- The cookie remains valid despite the password change.
Inactivity not deactivating sessions
In testing, even after a period of over a day of inactivity, the session was still valid
confidentially loss
- monitors (including private ones not shared on public status pages)
- notification providers
- settings like
api-keys(only used for accessing/metrics) - settings like secrets like the
Steam API Key - maintenance periods
availability loss
- by creating a lot of monitors and setting the retention policy very high leading to degraded database performance or out of storage
- by creating a lot of
HTTP(s) - Browser Engine (Chrome/Chromium) (Beta)leading to RAM exhaustion
integrity loss
- by the attacker deleting a monitor
- by the attacker deleting a monitor's history
- by the atacker changing the meaning of a monitor (changing where it points)
scope creep
If operated in some restricted network, access to monitors may provide the ability to change the scope of the attack to a different piece of infrastructure, for example via SQL commands to a database server.
We have not classified this as changed scope because credentials stored in the application for accessing other systems are existing valid paths across the trust boundary, and the user should be aware of that.
Impact
Another person with local access to the device could take over the session permanently, even after hours of previous inactivity or a password change.
Such activity would not be obvious to the user (see https://github.com/louislam/uptime-kuma/issues/3481 if you want to help with this).
With this gained account access, an attacker can cause:
CVE-2023-44400 has a CVSS score of 7.8 (High). The vector is requires local access, low privileges required, and no user interaction. A CVSS score reflects the worst-case severity of the vulnerability, not your specific exposure. Whether this affects your application depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable in your environment. A fixed version is available (1.23.3); upgrading removes the vulnerable code path.
Affected versions
Security releases
Kodem intelligence
Severity tells you how bad this could be in the worst case. It does not tell you whether you are exposed. Exploitability and impact are functions of runtime truth: whether the vulnerable code is present, reachable, and actually executes in your application. A vulnerable package can sit in your dependency tree and never run.
Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to reveal which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so teams prioritize the ones that genuinely matter. Kodem's runtime-powered SCA identifies whether this CVE is reachable in your applications.
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Kodem Kai can prioritize this vulnerability in your dependency tree and generate a fix recommendation.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is CVE-2023-44400? CVE-2023-44400 is a high-severity security vulnerability in uptime-kuma (npm), affecting versions < 1.23.3. It is fixed in 1.23.3.
- How severe is CVE-2023-44400? CVE-2023-44400 has a CVSS score of 7.8 (High). This score reflects the worst-case severity of the vulnerability, not your specific exposure. Whether it represents real risk in your environment depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable.
- Which versions of uptime-kuma are affected by CVE-2023-44400? uptime-kuma (npm) versions < 1.23.3 is affected.
- Is there a fix for CVE-2023-44400? Yes. CVE-2023-44400 is fixed in 1.23.3. Upgrade to this version or later.
- Is CVE-2023-44400 exploitable, and should I be worried? Whether CVE-2023-44400 is exploitable in your environment depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable. A CVSS score is a worst-case rating; it does not account for your specific deployment, configuration, or usage patterns. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to show which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so you can focus on the ones that represent real risk. Get a demo
- What actually determines whether CVE-2023-44400 is exploitable, and how bad it is? Exploitability and impact are not fixed properties of a CVE. They depend on runtime truth: whether the vulnerable code is present, reachable, and actually executes in your application. A high CVSS score on a dependency that never runs is not the same as real risk. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to reveal which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so teams prioritize the ones that genuinely matter.
- How do I fix CVE-2023-44400? Upgrade
uptime-kumato 1.23.3 or later.