# CVE-2022-39355: Discourse Patreon vulnerable to improper validation of email during Patreon authentication

> Attackers can take over forum accounts via improper email validation during Patreon authentication on Discourse sites with this plugin enabled.

- **Severity:** Critical 9.1 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 26 Oct 2022
- **Updated:** 23 Apr 2025
- **Also known as:** GHSA-fvj9-f67v-qpr4

## What is CVE-2022-39355?

CVE-2022-39355 is a critical authentication bypass vulnerability in discourse-patreon, published on 26 Oct 2022. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

Discourse Patreon enables syncronization between Discourse Groups and Patreon rewards. On sites with Patreon login enabled, an improper authentication vulnerability could be used to take control of a victim's forum account. This vulnerability is patched in commit number 846d012151514b35ce42a1636c7d70f6dcee879e of the discourse-patreon plugin. Out of an abundance of caution, any Discourse accounts which have logged in with an unverified-email Patreon account will be logged out and asked to verify their email address on their next login. As a workaround, disable the patreon integration and log out all users with associated Patreon accounts.

Weakness: CWE-287 (Improper Authentication)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-39355?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Discourse Patreon.

## How do I fix CVE-2022-39355?

No fix has been published for CVE-2022-39355 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2022-39355 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-39355 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2022-39355 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2022-39355 is a critical authentication bypass vulnerability in discourse-patreon, published on 26 Oct 2022. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-39355 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: discourse-patreon. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

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-2022-39355/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-39355/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2022-39355
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-39355
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2022-39355

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-39355/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.