Password Manager Security?

Some months have passed since the german IT news platform golem.de published an article reporting that password managers keep the passwords in memory unencrytped. Today I took the chance to make me my own picture of the problem.

I used Keepass for my little Test. First, I created a new password database and protected it with a password.

Step 1: Create a new encrypted password database

Then I deleted the sample entries and created a new one with a certain password (password: "Hidden information 3214" ... whoops!). The result is, that the password is not shown in the Window.

Step 2: Create an entry with a password

Next, I copied the password over selecting the entry item in Keepass and pressing Ctrl+C and started a hex editor, HxD, to read out the process memory of Keepass (you could also read all processes memory).

Step 3: Reading process memory of KeePass

The last step was to search for a part of the password string (here: "Hidden in"). The result was not surprising. The clear test password appeared near memory offset 0x3A2F770.

Result: My password in clear text

The performed experiment has some restrictions: You need to read the process memory within KeePass' time span it keeps the password in memory (because KeePass also deletes the visible password from memory again).

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