Security: Prevent loading of openssl.cnf#13118
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Prevent loading openssl.cnf from the originating vcpkg folder tree to avoid DLL injections. This patch force sets the OPENSSL_CONF env var to an invalid directory. This prevents openssl from attempting to load a cnf file which can contain settings to load arbitrary DLL files into KeePassXC memory space. Thank you to zdi-disclosures for reporting this finding!
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Pull request overview
Hardens the Windows startup path by preventing OpenSSL from loading an openssl.cnf from a potentially user-writable vcpkg directory tree, reducing risk of config-driven DLL injection.
Changes:
- On Windows, sets the
OPENSSL_CONFenvironment variable early inmain()to a deliberately invalid path so OpenSSL won’t loadopenssl.cnf.
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Codecov Report✅ All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests. Additional details and impacted files@@ Coverage Diff @@
## develop #13118 +/- ##
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- Coverage 64.60% 64.60% -0.00%
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Files 378 378
Lines 39903 39903
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- Hits 25778 25777 -1
- Misses 14125 14126 +1 ☔ View full report in Codecov by Sentry. 🚀 New features to boost your workflow:
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phoerious
previously approved these changes
Mar 9, 2026
I checked again. There's very little documentation about how this works. But I believe we also need to set OPENSSL_MODULES to prevent provider loading from <PREFIX>\ossl-modules. Why is this such a mess of barely documented hazards?
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phoerious
approved these changes
Mar 9, 2026
phoerious
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Mar 9, 2026
* Security: Prevent loading of openssl.cnf Prevent loading openssl.cnf from the originating vcpkg folder tree to avoid DLL injections. This patch force sets the OPENSSL_CONF and OPENSSL_MODULES env vars to an invalid directory. This prevents openssl from attempting to load a cnf file which can contain settings to load arbitrary DLL files into KeePassXC memory space. Thank you to zdi-disclosures for reporting this finding!
phoerious
pushed a commit
that referenced
this pull request
Mar 10, 2026
* Security: Prevent loading of openssl.cnf Prevent loading openssl.cnf from the originating vcpkg folder tree to avoid DLL injections. This patch force sets the OPENSSL_CONF and OPENSSL_MODULES env vars to an invalid directory. This prevents openssl from attempting to load a cnf file which can contain settings to load arbitrary DLL files into KeePassXC memory space. Thank you to zdi-disclosures for reporting this finding!
pull bot
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this pull request
Mar 10, 2026
* Security: Prevent loading of openssl.cnf Prevent loading openssl.cnf from the originating vcpkg folder tree to avoid DLL injections. This patch force sets the OPENSSL_CONF and OPENSSL_MODULES env vars to an invalid directory. This prevents openssl from attempting to load a cnf file which can contain settings to load arbitrary DLL files into KeePassXC memory space. Thank you to zdi-disclosures for reporting this finding!
pull bot
pushed a commit
to byxy77/keepassxc
that referenced
this pull request
Mar 10, 2026
* Security: Prevent loading of openssl.cnf Prevent loading openssl.cnf from the originating vcpkg folder tree to avoid DLL injections. This patch force sets the OPENSSL_CONF and OPENSSL_MODULES env vars to an invalid directory. This prevents openssl from attempting to load a cnf file which can contain settings to load arbitrary DLL files into KeePassXC memory space. Thank you to zdi-disclosures for reporting this finding!
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Prevent loading openssl.cnf from the originating vcpkg folder tree to avoid DLL injections. This patch force sets the OPENSSL_CONF env var to an invalid directory. This prevents openssl from attempting to load a cnf file which can contain settings to load arbitrary DLL files into KeePassXC memory space.
Thank you to @zdi-disclosures for reporting this finding!
Advisory: GHSA-4gr2-cr97-q9fx
Testing strategy
Confirmed through non-replication of exploit chain and via Procmon.
Type of change