Summary
Keycloak vulnerable to Plaintext Storage of User Password
A flaw was discovered in Keycloak Core package. When a user registers itself through registration flow, the "password" and "password-confirm" field from the form will occur as regular attributes in the users attributes. The password is also created, but the user attributes must not be there. This way, any entities (all users and clients with proper rights/roles) are able to retrieve the users passwords in clear-text.
Mitigation
Disable self-registration for users in all realms until patched.
Impact
Passwords for self-registered users are stored as cleartext attributes associated with the user.
CVE-2023-4918 has a CVSS score of 8.8 (High). The vector is network-reachable, 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 (22.0.3); 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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Frequently Asked Questions
- What is CVE-2023-4918? CVE-2023-4918 is a high-severity security vulnerability in org.keycloak:keycloak-core (maven), affecting versions = 22.0.2. It is fixed in 22.0.3.
- How severe is CVE-2023-4918? CVE-2023-4918 has a CVSS score of 8.8 (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 org.keycloak:keycloak-core are affected by CVE-2023-4918? org.keycloak:keycloak-core (maven) versions = 22.0.2 is affected.
- Is there a fix for CVE-2023-4918? Yes. CVE-2023-4918 is fixed in 22.0.3. Upgrade to this version or later.
- Is CVE-2023-4918 exploitable, and should I be worried? Whether CVE-2023-4918 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-2023-4918 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-2023-4918? Upgrade
org.keycloak:keycloak-coreto 22.0.3 or later.