CVE-2023-28440
Denial of service via admin theme import route in Discourse
Discourse is an open source platform for community discussion. In affected versions a maliciously crafted request from a Discourse administrator can lead to a long-running request and eventual timeout. This has the greatest potential impact in shared hosting environments where admins are untrusted. This issue has been addressed in versions 3.0.3 and 3.1.0.beta4. Users are advised to upgrade. There are no known workarounds for this vulnerability.
Attack profile
How easy it is to exploit
- Attack vector
- Network
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges needed
- High
- User interaction
- None
What an attacker can affect
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- Low
Exploit likelihood
What each source reports
CVE List Score used
Denial of service via admin theme import route in Discourse
Discourse is an open source platform for community discussion. In affected versions a maliciously crafted request from a Discourse administrator can lead to a long-running request and eventual timeout. This has the greatest potential impact in shared hosting environments where admins are untrusted. This issue has been addressed in versions 3.0.3 and 3.1.0.beta4. Users are advised to upgrade. There are no known workarounds for this vulnerability.
- Record
CVE-2023-28440- CVSS 3.1
- 2.7 Low
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L - Weakness
- CWE-400
- Updated
- 2026-11-02
EUVDEUVD-2023-32128
Discourse is an open source platform for community discussion. In affected versions a maliciously crafted request from a Discourse administrator can lead to a long-running request and eventual timeout. This has the greatest potential impact in shared hosting environments where admins are untrusted. This issue has been addressed in versions 3.0.3 and 3.1.0.beta4. Users are advised to upgrade. There are no known workarounds for this vulnerability.
- Record
EUVD-2023-32128- CVSS 3.1
- 2.7 Low
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L - Updated
- 2026-11-03
NVD
Discourse is an open source platform for community discussion. In affected versions a maliciously crafted request from a Discourse administrator can lead to a long-running request and eventual timeout. This has the greatest potential impact in shared hosting environments where admins are untrusted. This issue has been addressed in versions 3.0.3 and 3.1.0.beta4. Users are advised to upgrade. There are no known workarounds for this vulnerability.
- Record
CVE-2023-28440- CVSS 3.1
- 2.7 Low
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L - Weakness
- CWE-400
- Updated
- 2026-11-02
OSV
Denial of service via admin theme import route in Discourse
Discourse is an open source platform for community discussion. In affected versions a maliciously crafted request from a Discourse administrator can lead to a long-running request and eventual timeout. This has the greatest potential impact in shared hosting environments where admins are untrusted. This issue has been addressed in versions 3.0.3 and 3.1.0.beta4. Users are advised to upgrade. There are no known workarounds for this vulnerability.
- Record
CVE-2023-28440- CVSS 3.1
- 2.7 Low
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L - Weakness
- CWE-400
- Updated
- 2026-11-02
OSVBIT-discourse-2023-28440 No score
Denial of service via admin theme import route in Discourse
Discourse is an open source platform for community discussion. In affected versions a maliciously crafted request from a Discourse administrator can lead to a long-running request and eventual timeout. This has the greatest potential impact in shared hosting environments where admins are untrusted. This issue has been addressed in versions 3.0.3 and 3.1.0.beta4. Users are advised to upgrade. There are no known workarounds for this vulnerability.
- Record
BIT-discourse-2023-28440- Updated
- 2026-11-02
Affected products
Affected packages
| Package | Affected | Fixed |
|---|---|---|
discourseBitnami |
before 3.0.3 | 3.0.3 |
History
| Recorded | Changed | Sources |
|---|---|---|
| aliases, published | EUVD | |
| first indexed | CVE List, NVD, OSV |
Dates are when Every CVE recorded each change. Upstream dates may differ.
In short
CVE-2023-28440 is a low vulnerability (CVSS 2.7) in Discourse, published April 18, 2023. No source lists public exploit code. EPSS puts the chance of exploitation in the next 30 days at 0.69%, the 53rd percentile. Fixed in discourse 3.0.3.