Medium severity · published Dec 19, 2024
CVE-2024-53991
Potential Backup file leaked via Nginx in Discourse
5.9
CVSS
29.9%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
Discourse is an open source platform for community discussion. This vulnerability only impacts Discourse instances configured to use `FileStore::LocalStore` which means uploads and backups are stored locally on disk. If an attacker knows the name of the Discourse backup file, the attacker can trick nginx into sending the Discourse backup file with a well crafted request. This issue is patched in the latest stable, beta and tests-passed versions of Discourse. Users are advised to upgrade. Users unable to upgrade can either 1. Download all local backups on to another storage device, disable the `enable_backups` site setting and delete all backups until the site has been upgraded to pull in the fix. Or 2. Change the `backup_location` site setting to `s3` so that backups are stored and downloaded directly from S3.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
High
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
None
Availability
None
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)29.9% · higher than 98% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
DI
discourse · discourse
stable: <= 3.3.2; beta: <= 3.4.0.beta3; tests-passed: <= 3.4.0.beta3 · source: vendor, NVD
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-53991
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2024-53991
Mitigation
https://github.com/discourse/discourse/security/advisories/GHSA-567m-82f6-56rv
More from discourse
9.9
CVE-2025-68662
FinalDestination hostname matching allows SSRF protection bypass
9.8
CVE-2025-53102
Discourse is an open-source community discussion platform
9.8
CVE-2025-48877
Discourse is an open-source discussion platform
9.8
CVE-2023-47121
Discourse is an open source platform for community discussion
9.8
CVE-2021-41163
Discourse is an open source platform for community discussion
