Security readout for executives and security teams
Plain-English summary
OpenProject versions before 11.3.3 can be made to spend excessive CPU processing forum message quotes. A logged-in user could trigger a denial-of-service condition that affects availability, not data confidentiality or integrity. The vendor fixed the issue in OpenProject 11.3.3 and also published a patch.
Executive priority
Treat this as a moderate availability risk. Prioritize remediation for externally reachable or widely used OpenProject instances, especially where many authenticated users can post or quote forum messages.
Technical view
The MessagesController quote method used a vulnerable regular expression while stripping preformatted text tags from quoted forum messages. Ruby regex backtracking can grow exponentially on certain malformed input, causing Regular Expression Denial of Service. CVSS 3.1 is 4.3, with network access, low complexity, low privileges, and low availability impact.
Likely exposure
Exposure is likely limited to organizations running OpenProject before 11.3.3 where authenticated users can access discussion forum quote functionality. Internet-facing or broadly accessible internal OpenProject deployments have higher operational relevance.
Exploitation context
The source bundle does not show CISA KEV listing or cited evidence of active exploitation. Exploitation requires a low-privileged authenticated user and affects availability through expensive regex processing, not direct data theft or code execution.
Researcher notes
Evidence identifies a ReDoS in the forum quote path before 11.3.3. Available sources support affected version, root cause, CVSS, and fixed version. They do not support claims of active exploitation or broader product impact.
Mitigation direction
- Upgrade OpenProject to version 11.3.3 or later.
- If immediate upgrade is not possible, apply the vendor-provided patch manually.
- Review vendor advisory guidance before choosing any backport approach.
- Restrict forum quote access to trusted authenticated users until fixed.
Validation and detection
- Inventory OpenProject deployments and confirm their exact version.
- Check whether affected deployments expose discussion forums to authenticated users.
- Verify OpenProject is upgraded to 11.3.3 or the patch is applied.
- Review application availability logs for unusual slow quote-related requests.
Public sources used
Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.
Conservative CVE-to-ATT&CK context
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Open ATT&CK lookupCVE-2021-32763 mapping review
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Open ATT&CK lookup- Severity
- Medium
- CVSS
- 4.3 (3.1)
- Known Exploited
- No
- Published
Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
CNA and ADP enrichment extracted from CVE v5
These fields come from the CVE record and ADP containers, not from Glexia's Take. They preserve time-varying source decisions such as CISA SSVC, KEV status, CVSS metrics, and provider references.
CVSS vector scores
1 official scoreWe collect every scored CVSS vector available in the official CNA and ADP containers. When more than one version is present, the table keeps the source vectors side by side instead of collapsing them into the highest score.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L2.81.4Primary CVE scoreVulnerability scoring details
Base CVSS 3.1 score
4.3MediumVector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
Source materials
- CVE List V5 sourceCVE List V5
- https://github.com/opf/openproject/security/advisories/GHSA-qqvp-j6gm-q56fCVE reference · x_refsource_CONFIRM
- https://github.com/opf/openproject/pull/9447.patchCVE reference · x_refsource_MISC
Products and packages named in the record
CWE details
CWE links open Glexia weakness intelligence pages with official CWE context, developer remediation guidance, and related CVE mappings.
Uncontrolled Resource Consumption
Uncontrolled Resource Consumption represents a recurring weakness pattern that can create exploitable paths when design, validation, or implementation controls are missing.