CVE-2023-38706: Discourse vulnerable to DoS via drafts

Severity: medium (CVSS 6.5 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.8% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: yes
Published: 2023-09-15 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-770

Description

Discourse is an open-source discussion platform. Prior to version 3.1.1 of the `stable` branch and version 3.2.0.beta1 of the `beta` and `tests-passed` branches, a malicious user can create an unlimited number of drafts with very long draft keys which may end up exhausting the resources on the server. The issue is patched in version 3.1.1 of the `stable` branch and version 3.2.0.beta1 of the `beta` and `tests-passed` branches. There are no known workarounds.

Affected products

discourse: before 3.1.0; through 3.1.0; 3.1.0-beta1, 3.1.0-beta2, 3.1.0-beta3, 3.1.0-beta5, 3.1.0-beta6, 3.1.0-beta7 (+1) — fixed in 3.1.0

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: discourse 3.1.0. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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