CVE-2026-53961: medium-severity vulnerability in discourse
Discourse: Forged AWS SNS bounce notifications can disable a targeted user's email (missing TopicArn binding)
Published · Updated
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13Vexday Risk Score
No sign of exploitation. No public exploitation artifact known so far.
ssvc Trackcvss 6.5epss 0.3%
Discourse is an open-source discussion platform. Prior to 2026.6.0, 2026.5.1, 2026.4.2, and 2026.1.5, the AWS SES bounce webhook at POST /webhooks/aws verified that SNS messages were signed by Amazon but did not bind them to trusted TopicArn values, allowing any AWS account holder to publish validly signed forged Bounce notifications that revoke a targeted user email. This issue is fixed in versions 2026.6.0, 2026.5.1, 2026.4.2, and 2026.1.5.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:L
Affected products
discourse · discourseRelated CVEs — discourse
In the same product, most dangerous first.
CVE-2024-53991HIGHPotential Backup file leaked via Nginx in DiscourseEPSS 29.9%CVE-2021-41163CRITICALRCE via malicious SNS subscription payloadEPSS 19.8%CVE-2023-45131HIGHUnauthenticated access to new private chat messages in DiscourseEPSS 4.0%CVE-2026-28227LOWDiscourse Vulnerable to Unauthorized Topic Creation in Staff-Only Categories via Topic Timer publish_to_categoryEPSS 3.3%CVE-2022-36066CRITICALDiscourse vulnerable to RCE via admins uploading maliciously zipped fileEPSS 2.1%CVE-2024-47773HIGHAnonymous cache poisoning via XHR requests in DiscourseEPSS 1.8%
References
https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/3a3d315a85ef3c6aabfc7e7bb38702059784f06bhttps://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/61f12e13aa1b760f81d5ff60f12e3a7e77434b94https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/958f0cd831d65a49ec75f05343ca2c167679f0eahttps://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/aea35190791261bab258ebab05da279e78cdd0e6https://github.com/discourse/discourse/releases/tag/v2026.1.5https://github.com/discourse/discourse/releases/tag/v2026.4.2https://github.com/discourse/discourse/releases/tag/v2026.5.1https://github.com/discourse/discourse/releases/tag/v2026.6.0https://github.com/discourse/discourse/security/advisories/GHSA-8f9m-v436-wr3x