Cyber Resilience

CVE-2024-53266

Medium

Published: 04 February 2025

Published
04 February 2025
Modified
25 September 2025
KEV Added
—
Patch
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CVSS Score v3.1 4.3 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N
EPSS Score 0.0022 44.1th percentile
Risk Priority 9 60% EPSS · 20% KEV · 20% CVSS

Summary

CVE-2024-53266 is a medium-severity Cross-site Scripting (CWE-79) vulnerability in Discourse Discourse. Its CVSS base score is 4.3 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Drive-by Compromise (T1189); ranked at the 44.1th 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 platform for community discussion. In affected versions with some combinations of plugins, and with CSP disabled, activity streams in the user's profile page may be vulnerable to XSS. This has been patched in the latest…

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version of Discourse core. Users are advised to upgrade. Users unable to upgrade should ensure CSP is enabled.

CWE(s)
CWE-79

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI

T1189 Drive-by Compromise Initial Access
Adversaries may gain access to a system through a user visiting a website over the normal course of browsing.
attack.mitre.org →
T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application Initial Access
Adversaries may attempt to exploit a weakness in an Internet-facing host or system to initially access a network.
attack.mitre.org →
T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution Execution
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in client applications to execute code.
attack.mitre.org →
T1185 Browser Session Hijacking Collection
Adversaries may take advantage of security vulnerabilities and inherent functionality in browser software to change content, modify user-behaviors, and intercept information as part of various browser session hijacking techniques.
attack.mitre.org →
T1539 Steal Web Session Cookie Credential Access
An adversary may steal web application or service session cookies and use them to gain access to web applications or Internet services as an authenticated user without needing credentials.
attack.mitre.org →
T1555.003 Credentials from Web Browsers Credential Access
Adversaries may acquire credentials from web browsers by reading files specific to the target browser.
attack.mitre.org →
Why these techniques?

XSS via topic titles enables arbitrary JavaScript execution in victims' browsers on profile pages (with plugins and CSP disabled), facilitating drive-by compromise, public-facing app exploitation, client-side execution, browser session hijacking, web session cookie theft, and browser credential theft.

Affected Assets

discourse
discourse
3.4.0 · ≤ 3.3.3 · ≤ 3.4.0

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.

CA-8 Penetration Testing
addresses: CWE-79

Penetration testing submits XSS payloads to web applications, detecting cross-site scripting flaws for subsequent remediation.

SI-10 Information Input Validation
addresses: CWE-79

Validates web inputs to reject script-related content that could produce XSS.

SI-15 Information Output Filtering
addresses: CWE-79

Output validation against expected content can reject or sanitize script content in generated web pages, reducing XSS exploitability.

References