Reverse engineering and decrypting CyberArk vault credential files

This technical analysis demonstrates that CyberArk password-type .cred files use a recoverable custom key-derivation and AES encryption scheme based primarily on an AdditionalInformation field; the author reverse-engineered the algorithm, implemented a Python decryption tool, and recommends protecting credential files and using DPAPI protection—CyberArk subsequently released an update to mitigate the issue.