CVE-2023-22739Network attack vector

Service slowdown via unbounded topic draft data

Published Jan 26, 2023 · Updated Mar 10, 2025

Resource-exhaustion denial of service in Discourse before 3.0.1 stable allows remote authenticated users to slow the forum via a draft. The topic-draft endpoint accepts and stores draft data without a length limit, allowing one draft to consume excessive server resources. A forum account and user interaction are required; a sufficiently large draft forces the instance to crawl without exposing or altering data.

CVSS severity5.7
Medium
EPSS probability0.87%
Next 30 days · Sep 16, 2026
Known exploitationUnconfirmed
Based on sourced intelligence
Hinoki checkNot available
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Summary

What happened

Resource-exhaustion denial of service in Discourse before 3.0.1 stable allows remote authenticated users to slow the forum via a draft. The topic-draft endpoint accepts and stores draft data without a length limit, allowing one draft to consume excessive server resources. A forum account and user interaction are required; a sufficiently large draft forces the instance to crawl without exposing or altering data.

The record

CVE
CVE-2023-22739
Published
Jan 26, 2023
Updated
Mar 10, 2025
Vendor
Discourse
Product
Discourse
Classifications
CWE-770, T1499
Attack vector
network
Privileges
authenticated

Timeline

How it unfolded

  1. Jan 26, 2023CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
  2. Mar 10, 2025Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.

Exploitability

Present is not the same as exploitable

Compare your product and version with the public record. A matching version still requires validation against your environment.

Is a vulnerable build present?

Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.

  1. Affected versionversion=beta < 3.1.0.beta2
  2. Affected versionversion=stable < 3.0.1
  3. Affected versionversion=tests-passed <3.1.0.beta2

What conditions does exploitation require?

Attack vectornetwork
Required privilegesauthenticated

What is affected?

Discourse · Discourseversion=beta < 3.1.0.beta2; version=stable < 3.0.1; version=tests-passed <3.1.0.beta2

Published CVSS scores

6.5NVDCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
5.7GitHub / DiscourseCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

CVSS describes severity. EPSS estimates exploitation probability.

Attacks

What attackers are doing with it

Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.

Daily unique IPsNo honeypot observations are available for this CVE in the selected window.

No observations available

Sep 10, 2026Sep 16, 2026
Latest reporting daySep 16, 2026
Latest daily unique IPsUnavailable
Prior 30-day averageUnavailable
SourceShadowserver honeypots (KEV)
Vectornetwork
Privilegesauthenticated
Known exploitationUnconfirmed
Public exploitUnconfirmed

Weakness, pattern, technique

CWE-770Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling
T1499Endpoint Denial of Service

Public exploit references

No public exploit references are available in this record.

Labels summarize the accepted research assessment. They do not indicate a test against your environment.

Technologies

Your stack

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Your stack

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