Discourse: >> Discourse >> 2.9.0 Security Vulnerabilities
Discourse is an open source discussion platform. Prior to versions 2025.12.2, 2026.1.1, and 2026.2.0, the voters endpoint in the poll plugin lacked post visibility checks which allowed unauthorized access to voters details of polls in any post. Versions 2025.12.2, 2026.1.1, and 2026.2.0 patch the issue. No known workarounds are available.
CVSS Score
5.3
EPSS Score
0.0
Published
2026-02-26
Discourse is an open source discussion platform. Versions prior to 2025.12.2, 2026.1.1, and 2026.2.0 have an IDOR (Insecure Direct Object Reference) in `ReviewableNotesController`. When `enable_category_group_moderation` is enabled, a user belonging to a category moderation group can create or delete their own notes on **any** reviewable in the system, including reviewables in categories they do not moderate. The controller used an unscoped `Reviewable.find` and the `ensure_can_see` guard only checked whether the user could access the review queue in general, not whether they could access the specific reviewable. Only instances with `enable_category_group_moderation` enabled are affected. Staff users (admins/moderators) are not impacted as they already have access to all reviewables. The issue is patched in versions 2025.12.2, 2026.1.1, and 2026.2.0 by scoping the reviewable lookup through `Reviewable.viewable_by(current_user)`. As a workaround, disable the `enable_category_group_moderation` site setting. This removes the attack surface as only staff users will have access to the review queue.
CVSS Score
4.3
EPSS Score
0.0
Published
2026-02-26
Discourse is an open source discussion platform. Prior to versions 2025.12.2, 2026.1.1, and 2026.2.0, TL4 users are able to close, archive and pin topics in private categories they don't have access to. Versions 2025.12.2, 2026.1.1, and 2026.2.0 patch the issue. No known workarounds are available.
CVSS Score
2.7
EPSS Score
0.0
Published
2026-02-26
Discourse is an open source discussion platform. Prior to versions 2025.12.2, 2026.1.1, and 2026.2.0, `discourse-policy` plugin allows any authenticated user to interact with policies on posts they do not have permission to view. The `PolicyController` loads posts by ID without verifying the current user's access, enabling policy group members to accept/unaccept policies on posts in private categories or PMs they cannot see and any authenticated user to enumerate which post IDs have policies attached via differentiated error responses (information disclosure). The issue is patched in versions 2025.12.2, 2026.1.1, and 2026.2.0 by adding a `guardian.can_see?(@post)` check in the `set_post` before_action, ensuring post visibility is verified before any policy action is processed. As a workaround, disabling the discourse-policy plugin (`policy_enabled = false`) eliminates the vulnerability. There is no other workaround without upgrading.
CVSS Score
5.4
EPSS Score
0.0
Published
2026-02-26
Discourse is an open source discussion platform. Prior to versions 2025.12.2, 2026.1.1, and 2026.2.0, an IDOR vulnerability in the directory items endpoint allows any user, including anonymous users, to retrieve private user field values for all users in the directory. The `user_field_ids` parameter in `DirectoryItemsController#index` accepts arbitrary user field IDs without authorization checks, bypassing the visibility restrictions (`show_on_profile` / `show_on_user_card`) that are enforced elsewhere (e.g., `UserCardSerializer` via `Guardian#allowed_user_field_ids`). An attacker can request `GET /directory_items.json?period=all&user_field_ids=<id>` with any private field ID and receive that field's value for every user in the directory response. This enables bulk exfiltration of private user data such as phone numbers, addresses, or other sensitive custom fields that admins have explicitly configured as non-public. The issue is patched in versions 2025.12.2, 2026.1.1, and 2026.2.0 by filtering `user_field_ids` against `UserField.public_fields` for non-staff users before building the custom field map. As a workaround, site administrators can remove sensitive data from private user fields, or disable the user directory via the `enable_user_directory` site setting.
CVSS Score
7.5
EPSS Score
0.0
Published
2026-02-26
Discourse is an open source discussion platform. Prior to versions 2025.12.2, 2026.1.1, and 2026.2.0, when the `patreon_webhook_secret` site setting is blank, an attacker can forge valid webhook signatures by computing an HMAC-MD5 with an empty string as the key. Since the request body is known to the sender, the attacker can produce a matching signature and send arbitrary webhook payloads. This allows unauthorized creation, modification, or deletion of Patreon pledge data and triggering patron-to-group synchronization. This vulnerability is patched in versions 2025.12.2, 2026.1.1, and 2026.2.0. The fix rejects webhook requests when the webhook secret is not configured, preventing signature forgery with an empty key. As a workaround, configure the `patreon_webhook_secret` site setting with a strong, non-empty secret value. When the secret is non-empty, an attacker cannot forge valid signatures without knowing the secret.
CVSS Score
7.5
EPSS Score
0.0
Published
2026-02-26
Discourse is an open source discussion platform. Prior to versions 2025.12.2, 2026.1.1, and 2026.2.0, several webhook endpoints (SendGrid, Mailjet, Mandrill, Postmark, SparkPost) in the `WebhooksController` accepted requests without a valid authentication token when no token was configured. This allowed unauthenticated attackers to forge webhook payloads and artificially inflate user bounce scores, potentially causing legitimate user emails to be disabled. The Mailpace endpoint had no token validation at all. Starting in versions 2025.12.2, 2026.1.1, and 2026.2.0, all webhook endpoints reject requests with a 406 response when no authentication token is configured. As a workaround, ensure that webhook authentication tokens are configured for all email provider integrations in site settings (e.g., `sendgrid_verification_key`, `mailjet_webhook_token`, `postmark_webhook_token`, `sparkpost_webhook_token`). There's no current workaround for mailpace before getting this fix.
CVSS Score
6.5
EPSS Score
0.001
Published
2026-02-26
Discourse is an open source discussion platform. Prior to versions 3.5.3, 2025.11.1, and 2025.12.0, an attacker who knows part of a username can find the user and their full name via UI or API, even when `enable_names` is disabled. Versions 3.5.3, 2025.11.1, and 2025.12.0 contain a fix.
CVSS Score
5.3
EPSS Score
0.0
Published
2025-12-30
Discourse is an open source discussion platform. Version before 3.6.2 and 3.6.0.beta2, default Cache-Control response header with value no-store, no-cache was missing from error responses. This may caused unintended caching of those responses by proxies potentially leading to cache poisoning attacks. This vulnerability is fixed in 3.6.2 and 3.6.0.beta2.
CVSS Score
5.3
EPSS Score
0.001
Published
2025-10-28
Discourse is an open-source community discussion platform. In versions 3.5.0 and below, malicious meta-commands could be embedded in a backup dump and executed during restore. In multisite setups, this allowed an admin of one site to access data or credentials from other sites. This issue is fixed in version 3.5.1.
CVSS Score
6.8
EPSS Score
0.0
Published
2025-10-01