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libpurple2, surprisingly, gets that incorrect. The correct thing to do is use the OS-provided mechanisms. On Windows, that's CryptProtectData. That way the data, at rest, is inaccessible to anyone without the user's password.

But this doesn't apply to server applications like SMTP. I guess with SGX + some trusted storage, you could work it to only release the password to a known-encrypted socket or something.

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Well, the blog post presupposes you can get remote code execution on the WordPress server. There's very little you can do to secure yourself if the opponent already has RCE, because at that point the attacker has at least as much privilege as the application itself. In that case you have to fall back on limiting the amount of damage that can be done by respecting the principle of least privilege.

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