CVE-2025-61598
Discourse ≤ 3.5.2
Raw vector
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:L/VI:N/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:XSummary
CVE-2025-61598 is a medium-severity Use of Cache Containing Sensitive Information (CWE-524) vulnerability in Discourse Discourse. Its CVSS base score is 6.3 (Medium).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190); ranked at the 20th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to CM-6 (Configuration Settings) and SC-8 (Transmission Confidentiality and Integrity) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2025-36558
Vulnerability Data
Discourse is an open source discussion platform. Version before 3.6.2 and 3.6.0.beta2, default Cache-Control response header with value no-store, no-cache was missing from error responses. This may caused unintended caching of those responses by proxies potentially leading to cache poisoning…
more
attacks. This vulnerability is fixed in 3.6.2 and 3.6.0.beta2.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Missing Cache-Control header on error responses in Discourse enables remote, unauthenticated cache poisoning attacks on public-facing web applications.
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Control response
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Directly requires configuring the web server/application to emit the correct Cache-Control: no-store, no-cache header on every response, including error pages, eliminating the root cause of the missing header.
Enables integrity verification of HTTP responses so that cached poisoned error pages can be detected before they are served to users.
Requires cryptographic and header-based protections on transmitted web content, which encompasses ensuring cache-control directives prevent intermediary caching of sensitive error responses.
Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Protecting confidentiality of data-at-rest covers caches that persist sensitive information.
Enforcing least-privilege access permissions directly limits who can read cached sensitive data.
Protecting data-in-use can mitigate exposure when caches hold transient sensitive values.
Logical access controls on environments reduce the chance an outsider can reach the cache.
Hardened configuration baselines can disable or secure caching of sensitive data.
Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Data leakage prevention can block unauthorized access to cached sensitive information.
Information access restriction directly limits who can read cached sensitive data.
Information deletion ensures sensitive data is removed from caches when no longer needed.
Cryptography can protect cached data at rest, but does not address access control scope.
Secure coding practices prevent caching of sensitive data outside intended boundaries.
Environment separation reduces risk of cache exposure across development/test/production.