Memos' Access Tokens Stay Valid after User Password Change

Description

Summary

Access Tokens are used to authenticate application access. When a user changes their password, the existing list of Access Tokens stay valid instead of expiring. If a user finds that their account has been compromised, they can update their password.

The bad actor though will still have access to their account because the bad actor's Access Token stays on the list as a valid token. The user will have to manually delete the bad actor's Access Token to secure their account. The list of Access Tokens has a generic Description which makes it hard to pinpoint a bad actor in a list of Access Tokens.

Details

To improve Memos security, all Access Tokens will need to be revoked when a user changes their password. This removes the session for all the user's devices and prompts the user to log in again. You can treat the old Access Tokens as "invalid" because those Access Tokens were created with the older password.

PoC

  1. Have 2 devices on hand
  2. Log onto your Memos account on both devices. Notice how Access Tokens are created for each.
  3. On one device, successfully change the password. Refresh the page on the 2nd device and notice how it doesn't log out the user.
  4. On the 2nd device, change the password again. Refresh the page on the 1st device and notice how it doesn't log out the user.

Impact

A bad actor will still have access to the user's account because the Access Token does not expire on a password update. Having multi-factor authentication will vastly improve account security in Account Takeover cases instead of just relying on a password.

Basic information

Type
reviewed
Severity
high
Advisory on GitHub
Open advisory ↗
Repository advisory
Open repository advisory ↗
Source code
Browse source ↗
Published (advisory)
2025-11-14 22:09:54 UTC
Updated
2026-03-12 11:00:01 UTC
GitHub reviewed
2025-11-14 22:09:54 UTC
NVD published
2025-11-14

EPSS Score

Score Percentile
0.04% 12.48%

CVSS Scores

Base score Version Severity Vector
7.1 4.0
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Exploitation conditions are straightforward and stable.
Attack requirements (AT:N)
No additional preconditions are required beyond normal reachability.
Privileges required (PR:L)
Low privileges are required.
User interaction (UI:N)
No user interaction is required.
Vulnerable system confidentiality impact (VC:N)
No confidentiality impact on the vulnerable system.
Vulnerable system integrity impact (VI:H)
High integrity impact on the vulnerable system.
Vulnerable system availability impact (VA:N)
No availability impact on the vulnerable system.
Subsequent system confidentiality impact (SC:N)
No confidentiality impact on subsequent systems.
Subsequent system integrity impact (SI:N)
No integrity impact on subsequent systems.
Subsequent system availability impact (SA:N)
No availability impact on subsequent systems.

Identifiers

CWEs

CWE id Name
CWE-287 Improper Authentication

Credits

  • jhademcconnell (reporter)

Affected packages (1)

Vulnerable version ranges and first patched releases as published by GitHub.

Ecosystem Package Vulnerable range First patched Vulnerable functions
go github.com/usememos/memos <= 0.18.1 0.18.2

References

cvelogic Threat Intelligence