Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:H/A:NSummary
CVE-2025-68933 is a medium-severity Incorrect Authorization (CWE-863) vulnerability in Discourse Discourse. Its CVSS base score is 6.9 (Medium).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked at the 3th 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 AC-3 (Access Enforcement) and AC-4 (Information Flow Enforcement) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2025-206428
Vulnerability Data
Discourse is an open source discussion platform. In versions prior to 3.5.4, 2025.11.2, 2025.12.1, and 2026.1.0, non-admin moderators with the `moderators_change_post_ownership` setting enabled can change ownership of posts in private messages and restricted categories they cannot access, then export their…
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data to view the content. This is a broken access control vulnerability affecting sites that grant moderators post ownership transfer permissions. This issue is patched in versions 3.5.4, 2025.11.2, 2025.12.1, and 2026.1.0. The patch adds visibility checks for both the topic and posts before allowing ownership transfer. As a workaround, disable the `moderators_change_post_ownership` site setting to prevent non-admin moderators from using the post ownership transfer feature.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Broken access control in public-facing Discourse enables direct exploitation (T1190) and unauthorized privilege escalation to restricted data (T1068).
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Control response
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Directly enforces authorization checks on post ownership transfer so that moderators cannot act on topics/posts outside their visibility scope.
Limits the effective privileges granted by the moderators_change_post_ownership setting to only those moderators who already have read access to the affected topics.
Enforces information-flow rules that block the unauthorized transfer of private-message or restricted-category content to a moderator via ownership change followed by data export.
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.
Defining, enforcing, and reviewing access authorizations and least privilege directly prevents incorrect authorization checks.
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.
Requiring consistency between access rights and classification plus formal approval steps ensures that the authorization logic correctly distinguishes between entities that should and should not be granted access.
Enforcing policy-driven approval and role-change reviews stops incorrect or stale authorization decisions from remaining in effect after job changes or terminations.
By tying access rights to identity, device, location and classification, the control reduces the likelihood that an authorization decision will be based on an incorrect or bypassed policy.