# CVE-2022-31184: Email activation route can be abused by spammers in Discourse

> Attackers can abuse the email activation route to send mass spam emails, causing resource exhaustion and service disruption.

- **Severity:** Medium 6.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** A user has to click or open something
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 1 Aug 2022
- **Updated:** 23 Apr 2025
- **Also known as:** BIT-discourse-2022-31184, GHSA-m5w9-8gp8-2hrf

## What is CVE-2022-31184?

CVE-2022-31184 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Discourse Discourse, published on 1 Aug 2022. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.

### Official description

Discourse is the an open source discussion platform. In affected versions an email activation route can be abused to send mass spam emails. A fix has been included in the latest stable, beta and tests-passed versions of Discourse which rate limits emails. Users are advised to upgrade. Users unable to upgrade should manually rate limit email.

Weakness: CWE-770 (Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-31184?

1 open source package ship an affected version, including discourse. It affects 1 product.


| Package | Ecosystem | Affected | Fixed in |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `discourse` | Bitnami | All versions to 2.8.6 | None |

Products: Discourse Discourse.

## How do I fix CVE-2022-31184?

No fix has been published for CVE-2022-31184 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2022-31184 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-31184 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Discourse Discourse

- [CVE-2021-41163](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-41163/): RCE via malicious SNS subscription payload (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2022-36066](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-36066/): Discourse vulnerable to RCE via admins uploading maliciously zipped file (critical 9.1)
- [CVE-2022-39356](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-39356/): Discourse user account takeover via email and invite link (high 8.9)
- [CVE-2023-22468](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-22468/): Discourse vulnerable to Cross-site Scripting in local oneboxes (high 8.8)
- [CVE-2026-27934](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-27934/): Discourse leaks private topic title and post excerpt via user action API endpoint (high 8.7)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2022-31184 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2022-31184 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Discourse Discourse, published on 1 Aug 2022. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-31184 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected packages and fixed versions:
- discourse (Bitnami): affected all versions up to 2.8.6; no fix listed

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-31184/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-31184/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2022-31184
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-31184
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2022-31184

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-31184/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.