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DiscourseApplication

CVE-2022-39378

MEDIUM · 5.3 CVSS v3.1 Published 2022-11-02
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 2.8.9 or later.
See remediation →
62/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
Discourse is a platform for community discussion. Under certain conditions, a user badge may have been awarded based on a user's activity in a topic with restricted access. Before this vulnerability was disclosed, the topic title of the topic associated with the user badge may be viewed by any user. If there are sensitive information in the topic title, it will therefore have been exposed. This issue is patched in the latest stable, beta and tests-passed versions of Discourse. There are currently no known workarounds available.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis · high confidence

A vulnerability in Discourse allows any user to view topic titles associated with user badges, even when the topic has restricted access. This occurs because the badge awarding mechanism exposes topic titles to users who should not have access to view the restricted topic content.

MitigationUpdate Discourse to the latest stable, beta, or tests-passed version to patch this information disclosure vulnerability. There are no workarounds available.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
DiscourseApplication
Affected:< 2.8.9= 2.9.0

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
Low
Integrity
None
Availability
None

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Check installed Discourse version
    Access the Discourse admin panel and navigate to /admin/about or run 'git log -1' in the Discourse installation directory to determine the exact version
    Affected if The installed version is lower than 2.8.9 or equals exactly 2.9.0
  2. Verify badge system is in use
    Navigate to the admin panel and check if any badges have been created or awarded by visiting /admin/badges. Also check if there are any badge-related topics in the system
    Affected if Badges exist in the system and restricted topics could be associated with badge awards
  3. Identify restricted or private topics
    Review the topic list in /latest and check for categories with access restrictions (like 'private' or 'staff-only' categories). Look for topics in restricted categories that may have badge-related content
    Affected if There are restricted topics in private categories that could expose their titles through the badge awarding mechanism
  4. Check badge topic associations
    Examine recent badge awards by querying the database or reviewing badge-related API endpoints. Badge awards that reference restricted topics would be visible to unauthorized users in the affected versions
    Affected if Badge awards reference restricted topics and users outside the restricted group can view the badge award which exposes the topic title

You are affected if your Discourse version is below 2.8.9 or exactly 2.9.0 AND you have badges in use with restricted/private topics that could expose titles through the badge system.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to 2.8.9 or later
Fixed in 2.8.9
Interim mitigation

Update Discourse to the latest stable, beta, or tests-passed version to patch this information disclosure vulnerability. There are no workarounds available.

Recommended fix Moderate confidence

latest stable version (after 2.9.0)

  1. 1. Back up your Discourse instance database and files before starting any upgrade
  2. 2. Ensure you have SSH access to the server hosting your Discourse installation
  3. 3. Navigate to your Discourse installation directory (typically /var/www/discourse)
  4. 4. Stop the Discourse application to prevent data inconsistencies during upgrade
  5. 5. Pull the latest Docker image for Discourse: run `./launcher rebuild app` or `git pull` followed by bundle install and rake db:migrate
  6. 6. After upgrade completes, verify the new version by checking Admin > Dashboard in Discourse
  7. 7. Confirm the badge functionality works correctly and restricted topic titles are no longer exposed
Caveat Standard Discourse upgrades typically include database migrations - ensure you have tested the upgrade in a staging environment first

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

Fix this in Discourse Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation2.0 h
  • Implementation4.0 h
  • Testing6.0 h
  • Review / QA2.0 h
14.0 hours of engineering $2,380
Get the upgrade done

An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $3,808.

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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2022-39378 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data