CVE-2023-22739 Discourse subject to Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling
A malicious user can create arbitrarily large drafts in Discourse, causing resource exhaustion and degrading instance performance.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Any signed-in user
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2023-22739?
CVE-2023-22739 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Discourse Discourse, published on 26 Jan 2023. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.
Official description
Discourse is an open source platform for community discussion. Versions prior to 3.0.1 (stable), 3.1.0.beta2 (beta), and 3.1.0.beta2 (tests-passed) are subject to Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling. As there is no limit on data contained in a draft, a malicious user can create an arbitrarily large draft, forcing the instance to a crawl. This issue is patched in versions 3.0.1 (stable), 3.1.0.beta2 (beta), and 3.1.0.beta2 (tests-passed). There are no workarounds.
Weakness: CWE-770
Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-22739?
1 open source package ship an affected version, including discourse. It affects 1 product.
| Package | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
discourse Bitnami | All versions | 3.0.1 |
Products include Discourse Discourse.
How do I fix CVE-2023-22739?
Upgrade discourse to 3.0.1 or later.
Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.
Is CVE-2023-22739 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-22739 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Discourse Discourse
- CVE-2021-41163 RCE via malicious SNS subscription payload
- CVE-2022-36066 Discourse vulnerable to RCE via admins uploading maliciously zipped file
- CVE-2022-39356 Discourse user account takeover via email and invite link
- CVE-2023-22468 Discourse vulnerable to Cross-site Scripting in local oneboxes
- CVE-2026-27934 Discourse leaks private topic title and post excerpt via user action API endpoint
Sources
Also known as BIT-discourse-2023-22739, GHSA-rqgr-g6v7-jcfc.