Vulnerability in Discourse

CVE-2023-45806

Discourse is an open source platform for community discussion. Prior to version 3.1.3 of the `stable` branch and version 3.2.0.beta3 of the `beta` and `tests-passed` branches, if a user has been quoted and uses a `|` in their full name, they might be able to trigger a bug that generates a lot of duplicate content in all the posts they've been quoted by updating their full name again. Version 3.1.3 of the `stable` branch and version 3.2.0.beta3 of the `beta` and `tests-passed` branches contain a patch for this issue. No known workaround exists, although one can stop the "bleeding" by ensuring users only use alphanumeric characters in their full name field.

Vulnerability class: ReDoS (Regular Expression Denial of Service)

EPSS: 0.010 (59.2th percentile) — read the EPSS interpretation.

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:N/I:N/A:L.

Affected products

  • Discourse — versions >= 3.2.0.beta0, < 3.2.0.beta3, < 3.1.3, 3.2.0

Weakness classification (CWE)

Public proof-of-concept exploits

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2023-45806?
CVE-2023-45806 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Discourse, classified under Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity. CVSS score: 4.3/10. Published 2023-11-10.
How severe is CVE-2023-45806?
Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 4.3 out of 10.
Is CVE-2023-45806 known to be exploited?
2 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.