CVE-2025-68659 Discourse has DoS vulnerability in username change endpoint

Medium 4.3 Published Updated

Attackers can cause server resource exhaustion and degraded performance by sending large JSON payloads to the username change endpoint.

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-2025-68659?

CVE-2025-68659 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Discourse Discourse, published on 28 Jan 2026. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.

Official description

Discourse is an open source discussion platform. Versions prior to 3.5.4, 2025.11.2, 2025.12.1, and 2026.1.0 have an application level denial of service vulnerabilityin the username change functionality at try.discourse.org. The vulnerability allows attackers to cause noticeable server delays and resource exhaustion by sending large JSON payloads to the username preference endpoint PUT /u//preferences/username, resulting in degraded performance for other users and endpoints. This issue is patched in versions 3.5.4, 2025.11.2, 2025.12.1, and 2026.1.0. No known workarounds are available.

Weakness: CWE-770

Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-68659?

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

PackageAffectedFixed in
discourse BitnamiAll versions3.5.4, 2025.11.2, 2025.12.1, 2026.1.0

Products include Discourse Discourse.

How do I fix CVE-2025-68659?

Upgrade discourse to a fixed version for your release line: 3.5.4, 2025.11.2, 2025.12.1 or 2026.1.0.

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-2025-68659 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-68659 in the wild and no public exploit code.

All Discourse Discourse vulnerabilities

Sources

Also known as BIT-discourse-2025-68659, GHSA-rmp6-c9rq-6q7p.

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