CVE-2023-38489
Published: 27 July 2023
Summary
CVE-2023-38489 is a high-severity Insufficient Session Expiration (CWE-613) vulnerability in Getkirby Kirby. Its CVSS base score is 7.3 (High).
Operationally, ranked at the 43.2th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2023-1969
Vulnerability details
Kirby is a content management system. A vulnerability in versions prior to 3.5.8.3, 3.6.6.3, 3.7.5.2, 3.8.4.1, and 3.9.6 affects all Kirby sites with user accounts (unless Kirby's API and Panel are disabled in the config). It can only be abused…
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if a Kirby user is logged in on a device or browser that is shared with potentially untrusted users or if an attacker already maliciously used a previous password to log in to a Kirby site as the affected user. Insufficient Session Expiration is when a web site permits an attacker to reuse old session credentials or session IDs for authorization. In the variation described in this advisory, it allows attackers to stay logged in to a Kirby site on another device even if the logged in user has since changed their password. Kirby did not invalidate user sessions that were created with a password that was since changed by the user or by a site admin. If a user changed their password to lock out an attacker who was already in possession of the previous password or of a login session on another device or browser, the attacker would not be reliably prevented from accessing the Kirby site as the affected user. The problem has been patched in Kirby 3.5.8.3, 3.6.6.3, 3.7.5.2, 3.8.4.1, and 3.9.6. In all of the mentioned releases, the maintainers have updated the authentication implementation to keep track of the hashed password in each active session. If the password changed since the login, the session is invalidated. To enforce this fix even if the vulnerability was previously abused, all users are logged out from the Kirby site after updating to one of the patched releases.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
No named actor attribution yet. ATT&CK technique mapping in progress for this CVE.
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Likely Mitigating Controls AI
Per-CVE control mapping for this CVE has not run yet; the list below is derived from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry.
Locks the device (typically after inactivity) until re-authentication, addressing insufficient session expiration by preventing indefinite access.
Automatically terminating sessions after a defined period directly enforces session expiration, preventing indefinite session lifetimes that attackers can exploit.
Re-authentication after inactivity or time-based triggers prevents indefinite use of potentially hijacked or stale sessions.
Terminating sessions and network connections upon completion prevents insufficient session expiration.
Directly enforces termination of network sessions after inactivity or end-of-session, preventing indefinite session lifetime.
Consistent clocks across systems allow session expiration and timeout enforcement to function as intended in distributed environments.
When the non-persistent artifact is a session or connection, mandatory termination implements the missing expiration that CWE-613 describes.
Timed refresh of session-related information or on-demand generation plus deletion implements proper session expiration.