Medium severity · published Mar 19, 2026
CVE-2026-28282
Discourse vulnerable to group membership addition permission bypass via discourse-policy plugin
6.5
CVSS
0.3%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
Discourse is an open-source discussion platform. Versions prior to 2026.3.0-latest.1, 2026.2.1, and 2026.1.2 have a security flaw in the discourse-policy plugin which allowed a user with policy creation permission to gain membership access to any private/restricted groups. Once membership to a private/restricted group has been obtained, the user will be able to read private topics that only the group has access to. Versions 2026.3.0-latest.1, 2026.2.1, and 2026.1.2 contain a patch. As a workaround, review all policies for the use of `add-users-to-group` and temporarily remove the attribute from the policy. Alternatively, disable the discourse-policy plugin by disabling the `policy_enabled` site setting.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
Low
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
None
Availability
None
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.3% · higher than 28% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
DI
discourse · discourse
>= 2026.1.0-latest, < 2026.1.2; >= 2026.2.0-latest, < 2026.2.1; = 2026.3.0-latest · source: vendor, NVD
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-28282
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-28282
Patch
https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/64e2514ac17046cfaa8bc68a3c5140bc40736add
Patch
https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/c14b8a4cc5fc94e4839a83c5d55765897589f45b
Patch
https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/dcde9de530f515e88f99957056ffbcc2e1e03951
Vendor Advisory
https://github.com/discourse/discourse/security/advisories/GHSA-6cc8-x3rm-j5pf
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