What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2026-55493: HotCRP: comment-author search exposes anonymous commenter identities

• 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: 2026-10-30 · updated 2026-10-30
• Weakness: CWE-863

Description

HotCRP is conference review software. Starting with 2.101, the `cmt:` search term checks whether a comment is visible to the searching user but fails to check whether the commenter's identity should be visible. A `cmt:USER` search can therefore match a paper with a visible comment authored by USER even when the comment is supposed to be anonymous. An authenticated user with access to the search can infer the author of an anonymous comment, compromising reviewer anonymity. Comments that the user cannot see remain excluded from search results. The advisory prose identifies 3.3 as fixed, its affected-version metadata excludes 3.3, and the verified repository tag 3.3 already contains the identity-check fix; however, its patched-version metadata instead lists 3.3.1. This fixed-version source conflict remains unresolved.

Affected products

• kohler hotcrp: from 2.101, < 3.3

References

• https://github.com/kohler/hotcrp/commit/c4b008e756650db3063e8dd8300127936aae9ec1
• https://github.com/kohler/hotcrp/releases/tag/v3.3
• https://github.com/kohler/hotcrp/security/advisories/GHSA-x3g6-4c5h-7p29

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