#VU78770 Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling in Discourse - CVE-2023-38684

Vulnerability identifier: #VU78770

Vulnerability risk: Medium

CVSSv4.0: 2.7 [CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:U/U:Green]

CVE-ID: CVE-2023-38684

CWE-ID: CWE-770

Exploitation vector: Network

Exploit availability: No

Vulnerable software:
Discourse
Web applications / Forum & blogging software

Vendor: Civilized Discourse Construction Kit, Inc.

Description

The vulnerability allows a remote attacker to perform a denial of service (DoS) attack.

The vulnerability exists due to unbounded limits in various controller actions. A remote attacker can pass specially crafted input to the application and perform a denial of service (DoS) attack.

Mitigation
Install updates from vendor's website.

Vulnerable software versions

Discourse: 3.0.5 - 3.1.0 beta6

---

External links
https://github.com/discourse/discourse/security/advisories/GHSA-ff7g-xv79-hgmf
https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/bfc3132bb22bd5b7e86f428746b89c4d3d7f5a70

---

Q & A

Can this vulnerability be exploited remotely?

Yes. This vulnerability can be exploited by a remote non-authenticated attacker via the Internet.

Is there known malware, which exploits this vulnerability?

No. We are not aware of malware exploiting this vulnerability.