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.
This vulnerability carries a LOW severity rating with a CVSS v3.1 score of 3.5, indicating it can be exploited remotely over the network with relatively low complexity though user interaction is required requiring only low-level privileges . The vulnerability impacts limited integrity, for affected systems. Impacting 1 product from flarum organizations running these solutions should prioritize assessment and patching.
Reported in 2023, this vulnerability emerged during an era marked by increased sophistication in supply chain attacks, cloud infrastructure vulnerabilities, and software-as-a-service (SaaS) security challenges. Security practices during this period emphasized zero-trust architectures, container security, and API protection.
2023-01-13T19:15:12.037
2024-11-21T07:44:54.680
Modified
CVSSv3.1: 3.5 (LOW)
SecUtils normalizes and enriches National Vulnerability Database (NVD) records by standardizing vendor and product identifiers, aggregating vulnerability metadata from both NVD and MITRE sources, and providing structured context for security teams. For flarum's affected products, we extract Common Platform Enumeration (CPE) data, Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) classifications, CVSS severity metrics, and reference data to enable rapid vulnerability prioritization and asset correlation. This record contains no exploit code, proof-of-concept instructions, or attack methodologies—only defensive intelligence necessary for patch management, risk assessment, and security operations.