CVE-2026-28282: Discourse vulnerable to group membership addition permission bypass via discourse-policy plugin

Severity: medium (CVSS 6.5 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.3% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2026-03-19 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-863

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.

Affected products

discourse: from 2026.1.0 before 2026.1.2; from 2026.2.0 before 2026.2.1; 2026.3.0 — fixed in 2026.1.2, 2026.2.1

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: discourse 2026.1.2, 2026.2.1. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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