VYPR
← All advisories
Moderate severityNVD Advisory· Published Jan 18, 2022· Updated Apr 23, 2025

Comment reply notifications sent to incorrect users in wagtail

CVE-2022-21683

Description

Wagtail is a Django based content management system focused on flexibility and user experience. When notifications for new replies in comment threads are sent, they are sent to all users who have replied or commented anywhere on the site, rather than only in the relevant threads. This means that a user could listen in to new comment replies on pages they have not have editing access to, as long as they have left a comment or reply somewhere on the site. A patched version has been released as Wagtail 2.15.2, which restores the intended behaviour - to send notifications for new replies to the participants in the active thread only (editing permissions are not considered). New comments can be disabled by setting WAGTAILADMIN_COMMENTS_ENABLED = False in the Django settings file.

Affected packages

Versions sourced from the GitHub Security Advisory.

PackageAffected versionsPatched versions
wagtailPyPI
>= 2.13, < 2.15.22.15.2

Affected products

1

Patches

1
5fe901e5d86e

Fix commenting thread notifications being sent to non-thread users

https://github.com/wagtail/wagtailjacobtoppmDec 9, 2021via ghsa
commit
2 files changed · +25 −3
  • wagtail/admin/tests/pages/test_edit_page.py+22 −0 modified
    @@ -2100,6 +2100,7 @@ def setUp(self):
         self.subscriber = self.create_user('subscriber')
         self.non_subscriber = self.create_user('non-subscriber')
         self.non_subscriber_2 = self.create_user('non-subscriber-2')
+        self.never_emailed_user = self.create_user('never-emailed')
 
         PageSubscription.objects.create(
             page=self.child_page,
@@ -2113,6 +2114,23 @@ def setUp(self):
             comment_notifications=True
         )
 
+        # Add comment and reply on a different page for the never_emailed_user
+        # They should never be notified
+        comment_on_other_page = Comment.objects.create(
+            page=self.root_page,
+            user=self.never_emailed_user,
+            text='a comment'
+        )
+
+        CommentReply.objects.create(
+            user=self.never_emailed_user,
+            comment=comment_on_other_page,
+            text='a reply'
+        )
+
+    def assertNeverEmailedWrongUser(self):
+        self.assertNotIn(self.never_emailed_user.email, [to for email in mail.outbox for to in email.to])
+
     def test_new_comment(self):
         post_data = {
             'title': "I've been edited!",
@@ -2144,6 +2162,7 @@ def test_new_comment(self):
 
         # Check notification email
         self.assertEqual(len(mail.outbox), 1)
+        self.assertNeverEmailedWrongUser()
         self.assertEqual(mail.outbox[0].to, [self.subscriber.email])
         self.assertEqual(mail.outbox[0].subject, 'test@email.com has updated comments on "I\'ve been edited! (simple page)"')
         self.assertIn('New comments:\n - "A test comment"\n\n', mail.outbox[0].body)
@@ -2283,6 +2302,7 @@ def test_resolve_comment(self):
 
         # Check notification email
         self.assertEqual(len(mail.outbox), 2)
+        self.assertNeverEmailedWrongUser()
         # The non subscriber created the comment, so should also get an email
         self.assertEqual(mail.outbox[0].to, [self.non_subscriber.email])
         self.assertEqual(mail.outbox[0].subject, 'test@email.com has updated comments on "I\'ve been edited! (simple page)"')
@@ -2337,6 +2357,7 @@ def test_delete_comment(self):
 
         # Check notification email
         self.assertEqual(len(mail.outbox), 1)
+        self.assertNeverEmailedWrongUser()
         self.assertEqual(mail.outbox[0].to, [self.subscriber.email])
         self.assertEqual(mail.outbox[0].subject, 'test@email.com has updated comments on "I\'ve been edited! (simple page)"')
         self.assertIn('Deleted comments:\n - "A test comment"\n\n', mail.outbox[0].body)
@@ -2398,6 +2419,7 @@ def test_new_reply(self):
 
         # Check notification email
         self.assertEqual(len(mail.outbox), 3)
+        self.assertNeverEmailedWrongUser()
 
         recipients = [mail.to for mail in mail.outbox]
         # The other non subscriber replied in the thread, so should get an email
  • wagtail/admin/views/pages/edit.py+3 −3 modified
    @@ -141,11 +141,11 @@ def send_commenting_notifications(self, changes):
         # Get subscribers to individual threads
         replies = CommentReply.objects.filter(comment_id__in=relevant_comment_ids)
         comments = Comment.objects.filter(id__in=relevant_comment_ids)
-        thread_users = get_user_model().objects.exclude(pk=self.request.user.pk).exclude(pk__in=subscribers.values_list('user_id', flat=True)).prefetch_related(
+        thread_users = get_user_model().objects.exclude(pk=self.request.user.pk).exclude(pk__in=subscribers.values_list('user_id', flat=True)).filter(
+            Q(comment_replies__comment_id__in=relevant_comment_ids) | Q(**{('%s__pk__in' % COMMENTS_RELATION_NAME): relevant_comment_ids})
+        ).prefetch_related(
             Prefetch('comment_replies', queryset=replies),
             Prefetch(COMMENTS_RELATION_NAME, queryset=comments)
-        ).exclude(
-            Q(comment_replies__isnull=True) & Q(**{('%s__isnull' % COMMENTS_RELATION_NAME): True})
         )
 
         # Skip if no recipients

Vulnerability mechanics

Generated by null/stub on May 9, 2026. Inputs: CWE entries + fix-commit diffs from this CVE's patches. Citations validated against bundle.

References

6

News mentions

0

No linked articles in our index yet.