Cyber Resilience

CVE-2023-38498

Medium

Published: 28 July 2023

Published
28 July 2023
Modified
21 November 2024
KEV Added
Patch
CVSS Score v3.1 4.3 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
EPSS Score 0.0016 36.4th percentile
Risk Priority 9 60% EPSS · 20% KEV · 20% CVSS

Summary

CVE-2023-38498 is a medium-severity Uncontrolled Resource Consumption (CWE-400) vulnerability in Discourse Discourse. Its CVSS base score is 4.3 (Medium).

Operationally, ranked at the 36.4th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability details

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, a malicious user can prevent the defer queue from proceeding promptly on sites hosted in the…

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same multisite installation. 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. There are no known workarounds for this vulnerability. Users of multisite configurations should upgrade.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

No named actor attribution yet. ATT&CK technique mapping in progress for this CVE.

Affected Assets

discourse
discourse
1.1.0, 1.2.0, 1.3.0, 1.4.0, 1.5.0 · ≤ 3.0.6

Mitigating Controls

Likely Mitigating Controls AI

Per-CVE control mapping for this CVE has not run yet; the list below is derived from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry.

addresses: CWE-400 CWE-770

Limiting concurrent sessions directly prevents uncontrolled resource consumption by capping the number of active sessions per user or account.

addresses: CWE-400 CWE-770

Contingency plan testing includes resource exhaustion scenarios to verify recovery, making it harder for attackers to sustain exploits that cause uncontrolled consumption.

addresses: CWE-400 CWE-770

Updated contingency plans include current procedures to detect, contain, and recover from resource exhaustion, limiting an attacker's ability to sustain impact from uncontrolled consumption.

addresses: CWE-400 CWE-770

Alternate site allows resumption of operations if resource exhaustion at the primary site is exploited to cause unavailability.

addresses: CWE-400 CWE-770

Alternate telecommunications services enable resumption of essential functions when primary services become unavailable due to uncontrolled resource consumption.

addresses: CWE-400 CWE-770

Planning and coordination of security activities (scans, tests, maintenance) directly imposes scheduling and throttling that prevents those activities from producing uncontrolled resource consumption.

addresses: CWE-400 CWE-770

Performance metrics and monitoring inherently track resource consumption patterns, making uncontrolled consumption easier to detect and mitigate.

addresses: CWE-400 CWE-770

Terminating idle connections bounds resource consumption that would otherwise allow uncontrolled accumulation of open sessions.

References