Cyber Resilience

CVE-2026-33424

Access Control in Discourse 2026.1.0 – 2026.1.2

Published
21 March 2026
Modified
24 March 2026
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 5.9
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:H/PR:H/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:L
EPSS Score 0.0022 12th percentile
Risk Priority 41 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2026-33424 is a medium-severity Incorrect Authorization (CWE-863) vulnerability in Discourse Discourse. Its CVSS base score is 5.9 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190); ranked at the 12th 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

Vulnerability Data

Discourse is an open-source discussion platform. Prior to versions 2026.3.0-latest.1, 2026.2.1, and 2026.1.2, an attacker can grant access to a private message topic through invites even after they lose access to that PM. Versions 2026.3.0-latest.1, 2026.2.1, and 2026.1.2 contain a…

more

patch. No known workarounds are available.

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?

CWE-863 authz bypass in public-facing Discourse web app directly enables exploitation via T1190 to perform unauthorized invite actions on PM topics.

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

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2026-33428Same product: Discourse Discourse
CVE-2026-33251Same product: Discourse Discourse
CVE-2026-27936Same product: Discourse Discourse
CVE-2025-68933Same product: Discourse Discourse
CVE-2026-31805Same product: Discourse Discourse
CVE-2026-26265Same product: Discourse Discourse
CVE-2026-28282Same product: Discourse Discourse
CVE-2026-26973Same product: Discourse Discourse
CVE-2025-68666Same product: Discourse Discourse
CVE-2026-28227Same 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)
  • AC-3 Access Enforcement
  • AC-4 Information Flow Enforcement
  • AC-6 Least Privilege
Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)
  • 5 hardening rules · 3 OS baselines
Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

prevent

Directly enforces authorization checks on invite operations so that a user who has already lost access to a PM cannot grant that access to others.

prevent

Enforces information-flow rules on how access rights may be propagated via invites, blocking the unauthorized flow after the inviter's own rights have been revoked.

prevent

Restricts the invite permission to the minimum set of users who currently hold legitimate access, reducing the window for the described post-revocation abuse.

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.AA-05 mostly match
prevents

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.

prevents

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.

prevents

Enforcing policy-driven approval and role-change reviews stops incorrect or stale authorization decisions from remaining in effect after job changes or terminations.

prevents

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.

References