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.
Project Subscriptions
No data.
Advisories
No advisories yet.
Fixes
Solution
No solution given by the vendor.
Workaround
No workaround given by the vendor.
References
History
Thu, 26 Feb 2026 20:00:00 +0000
| Type | Values Removed | Values Added |
|---|---|---|
| Description | 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. | |
| Title | Discourse doesn't scope reviewable notes to user-visible reviewables | |
| Weaknesses | CWE-863 | |
| References |
| |
| Metrics |
cvssV3_1
|
Projects
Sign in to view the affected projects.
Status: PUBLISHED
Assigner: GitHub_M
Published:
Updated: 2026-02-26T20:41:30.698Z
Reserved: 2026-02-16T22:20:28.612Z
Link: CVE-2026-26973
No data.
Status : Received
Published: 2026-02-26T20:31:37.327
Modified: 2026-02-26T20:31:37.327
Link: CVE-2026-26973
No data.
OpenCVE Enrichment
No data.
Weaknesses