CVE-2026-26973CWE-863

Discourse doesn't scope reviewable notes to user-visible reviewables

Medium · published February 26, 2026

CVSS v3.1
4.3
EPSS
0%
Percentile
18.2
In the wild
Unconfirmed
What it is

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.

The record
Technical detail
CVSS v3.1
4.3 · MEDIUM
Vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N
CVSS v4.0
Not supplied
EPSS
0.00270 · 18.2th percentile
Weakness
CWE-863 · Incorrect Authorization
Published
2026-02-26T19:19Z
EPSS history
Timeline
  • 26 FEB 19:19Z
    Discourse doesn't scope reviewable notes to user-visible reviewables
    cvelistv5