What is CVE-2023-38685?

CVE-2023-38685 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Discourse, classified under Information Disclosure. CVSS score: 4.3/10. Published 2023-07-28.

How severe is CVE-2023-38685?

Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 4.3 out of 10.

Information disclosure in Discourse

CVE-2023-38685

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, information about restricted-visibility topic tags could be obtained by unauthorized users. 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.

Vulnerability class: Information Disclosure

Published 2023-07-28 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 4.3 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.005 (38.6th percentile), scored 2026-10-07.

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 39th percentile — 38.6% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.005 · newest: 0.005 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Discourse — versions 2.4.0, 3.1.0, 2.9.0

Weakness classification (CWE)

CWE-200 — Information Disclosure

References

github.com/discourse/discourse/security/advisories/GHSA-wx6x-q4gp-mgv5 (Vendor Advisory)
github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/073661142369a0a66c25775cc3870582a679ef8b (Patch)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2023-38685?: CVE-2023-38685 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Discourse, classified under Information Disclosure. CVSS score: 4.3/10. Published 2023-07-28.
How severe is CVE-2023-38685?: Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 4.3 out of 10.