What is CVE-2023-38684?

CVE-2023-38684 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Discourse, classified under Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling. CVSS score: 5.3/10. Published 2023-07-28.

How severe is CVE-2023-38684?

Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.3 out of 10.

Resource exhaustion in Discourse

CVE-2023-38684

Discourse is an open source discussion platform. Prior to version 3.0.6 of the `stable` branch and version 3.1.0.beta7 of the `beta` and `tests-passed` branches, in multiple controller actions, Discourse accepts limit params but does not impose any upper bound on the values being accepted. Without an upper bound, the software may allow arbitrary users to generate DB queries which may end up exhausting the resources on the server. The issue is patched in version 3.0.6 of the `stable` branch and version 3.1.0.beta7 of the `beta` and `tests-passed` branches. There are no known workarounds for this vulnerability.

EPSS: 0.005 (41.7th percentile) — read the EPSS interpretation.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 5.3 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L.

Affected products

Discourse — versions 2.4.0, 3.1.0, 2.9.0

Weakness classification (CWE)

CWE-770 — Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling

References

security-advisories@github.com (x_refsource_CONFIRM, Vendor Advisory)
security-advisories@github.com (Patch, x_refsource_MISC)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2023-38684?: CVE-2023-38684 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Discourse, classified under Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling. CVSS score: 5.3/10. Published 2023-07-28.
How severe is CVE-2023-38684?: Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.3 out of 10.