Cyber Resilience

CVE-2026-27570

XSS in Discourse 2026.1.0 – 2026.1.2

Published
19 March 2026
Modified
25 March 2026
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v4 5.1
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:P/VC:L/VI:L/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:X
EPSS Score 0.0035 27th percentile
Risk Priority 35 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2026-27570 is a medium-severity Cross-site Scripting (CWE-79) vulnerability in Discourse Discourse. Its CVSS base score is 5.1 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190); ranked at the 27th 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 SI-10 (Information Input Validation) and SI-15 (Information Output Filtering) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

Discourse is an open-source discussion platform. Prior to versions 2026.3.0-latest.1, 2026.2.1, and 2026.1.2, the onebox method in the SharedAiConversation model renders the conversation title directly into HTML without proper sanitization. Versions 2026.3.0-latest.1, 2026.2.1, and 2026.1.2 contain a patch. As a…

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workaround, tighten access by changing the `ai_bot_public_sharing_allowed_groups` site setting.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI

T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application Initial Access
Adversaries may attempt to exploit a weakness in an Internet-facing host or system to initially access a network.
Why these techniques?

XSS in public-facing Discourse web app directly enables exploitation of public-facing application (T1190).

Confidence: HIGH · MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise v19.0

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2023-22454Same product: Discourse Discourse
CVE-2023-29196Same product: Discourse Discourse
CVE-2023-25172Same product: Discourse Discourse
CVE-2023-26040Same product: Discourse Discourse
CVE-2023-36473Same product: Discourse Discourse
CVE-2023-22455Same product: Discourse Discourse
CVE-2023-22468Same product: Discourse Discourse
CVE-2023-30538Same product: Discourse Discourse
CVE-2023-43659Same product: Discourse Discourse
CVE-2023-37467Same product: Discourse Discourse

Affected Assets

discourse
discourse
2026.3.0 · 2026.1.0 — 2026.1.2 · 2026.2.0 — 2026.2.1

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)
  • SI-10 Information Input Validation
  • SI-15 Information Output Filtering
  • AC-3 Access Enforcement
Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)

Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)
  • V1.1.2
  • V1.3.2

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

prevent

Directly requires validation and sanitization of untrusted data (conversation title) before it is rendered into HTML, preventing the unsanitized onebox output that enables the XSS.

prevent

Requires filtering/sanitization of information output to external consumers, which would have blocked the raw HTML rendering of the SharedAiConversation title.

prevent

Enforces the site setting ai_bot_public_sharing_allowed_groups to restrict which users can trigger the vulnerable shared-AI-conversation rendering path.

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.

PR.PS-06 mostly match
prevents

Secure SDLC practices directly target introduction of XSS via coding standards/testing (mostly), yet the single broad outcome leaves many specific neutralization vectors unaddressed (partial).

PR.PS-02 partial match
prevents

Patching and EOL replacement can remediate known XSS instances in libraries or frameworks (partial) but do nothing to enforce input neutralization in application code (none).

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.

detects

Secure-coding testing and automated code-analysis tools are applied to detect improper neutralization of script-related content during web-page generation.

prevents

Knowledge exchange on emerging attack techniques and patches reduces the likelihood that cross-site scripting flaws remain unaddressed in deployed applications.

prevents

Operational indicators of compromise for web-application attacks can be incorporated into WAF or input-filtering rules, lowering the likelihood that unsanitized data reaches the browser.

prevents

Requiring language-specific secure-coding standards and automated scanning during the SDLC catches missing output encoding or improper neutralization of untrusted data before the software reaches production.

prevents

Secure-coding standards, SAST scans and removal of insecure code samples together eliminate the failure to neutralize script content that produces cross-site scripting flaws.

none

Webpage malware scanning and block-listing of known malicious sites reduce the likelihood that reflected or stored script payloads reach a user’s browser.

References