CVE-2022-36066 Discourse vulnerable to RCE via admins uploading maliciously zipped file

What is CVE-2022-36066?

CVE-2022-36066 is a critical vulnerability in Discourse Discourse, published on 29 Sep 2022. An attacker needs administrator access to exploit it, with no action from the victim.

Official description

Discourse is an open source discussion platform. In versions prior to 2.8.9 on the `stable` branch and prior to 2.9.0.beta10 on the `beta` and `tests-passed` branches, admins can upload a maliciously crafted Zip or Gzip Tar archive to write files at arbitrary locations and trigger remote code execution. The problem is patched in version 2.8.9 on the `stable` branch and version 2.9.0.beta10 on the `beta` and `tests-passed` branches. There are no known workarounds.

Weakness: CWE-434

Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-36066?

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

Products include Discourse Discourse.

How do I fix CVE-2022-36066?

Upgrade discourse to 2.8.9 or later.

Is CVE-2022-36066 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-36066 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Discourse Discourse

• CVE-2021-41163 RCE via malicious SNS subscription payload Critical 10.0
• CVE-2022-39356 Discourse user account takeover via email and invite link High 8.9
• CVE-2023-22468 Discourse vulnerable to Cross-site Scripting in local oneboxes High 8.8
• CVE-2026-27934 Discourse leaks private topic title and post excerpt via user action API endpoint High 8.7
• CVE-2025-48053 Discourse vulnerable to DoS via large URL payload in PM to a bot High 8.7

All Discourse Discourse vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as BIT-discourse-2022-36066, GHSA-grvh-qcpg-hfmv.