CVE-2023-22489Flarum is missing authorization in discussion replies
- 3.5LowCVSS base score
- 0.60%Exploitation in 30 daysEPSS · top 51% of all CVEs
- NoKnown exploitednot in CISA's KEV catalog
- NonePublic exploitsnone known yet
Description
Flarum is a discussion platform for websites. If the first post of a discussion is permanently deleted but the discussion stays visible, any actor who can view the discussion is able to create a new reply via the REST API, no matter the reply permission or lock status. This includes users that don't have a validated email. Guests cannot successfully create a reply because the API will fail with a 500 error when the user ID 0 is inserted into the database. This happens because when the first post of a discussion is permanently deleted, the `first_post_id` attribute of the discussion becomes `null` which causes access control to be skipped for all new replies. Flarum automatically makes discussions with zero comments invisible so an additional condition for this vulnerability is that the discussion must have at least one approved reply so that `discussions.comment_count` is still above zero after the post deletion. This can open the discussion to uncontrolled spam or just unintentional replies if users still had their tab open before the vulnerable discussion was locked and then post a reply when they shouldn't be able to. In combination with the email notification settings, this could also be used as a way to send unsolicited emails. Versions between `v1.3.0` and `v1.6.3` are impacted. The vulnerability has been fixed and published as flarum/core v1.6.3. All communities running Flarum should upgrade as soon as possible. There are no known workarounds.
Timeline
ID reserved
By GitHub_M
- 15 days later
· 15 days later
Published
- 2 years later
· 2 years later
Record updated
Changes after publication (a new score, a public exploit, EPSS crossing 1, 10 or 50 %, leaving KEV) are kept since November 2026; earlier ones are not known.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| GitHub_MCNA (assigner) | 3.1 | Low3.5 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N |
| NVDNVD · Modified | 3.1 | Low3.5 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 0.60% · top 51% of all CVEs (13 Nov 2026)
- CISA SSVC
- Exploitation: none · Automatable: no · Technical impact: partial
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: Low 3.5.
Affected products
Affected packages
From reviewed advisories of the GitHub Advisory Database.
- Packagistflarum/coreGHSA-hph3-hv3c-7725 (opens in a new tab)
References
References3
- https://github.com/flarum/framework/security/advisories/GHSA-hph3-hv3c-7725 (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_CONFIRMx_transferred
- https://github.com/flarum/framework/commit/12f14112a0ecd1484d97330b82beb2a145919015 (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISCx_transferred
- https://github.com/flarum/framework/releases/tag/v1.6.3 (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISCx_transferred
Sources
The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.
- CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
- CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
- NVD (opens in a new tab)
- FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
- EUVD EUVD-2023-0489 (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisory GHSA-hph3-hv3c-7725 (opens in a new tab)
- CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)
Badge for a README or a ticket
[](https://cveledger.app/cve/CVE-2023-22489)Record last updated .