Cyber Resilience

CVE-2026-46413

Access Control in Discourse 2026.1.0 – 2026.1.5

Published
09 July 2026
Modified
14 July 2026
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 6.5
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
EPSS Score 0.0037 29th percentile
Risk Priority 35 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2026-46413 is a medium-severity Missing Authorization (CWE-862) vulnerability in Discourse Discourse. Its CVSS base score is 6.5 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190); ranked at the 29th 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-6 (Least Privilege) — 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 2026.6.0, 2026.5.1, 2026.4.2, and 2026.1.5, regular users could route direct S3 multipart uploads through ExternalUploadManager into the admin backup store. This issue is fixed in versions 2026.6.0, 2026.5.1, 2026.4.2, and 2026.1.5.

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?

Missing authorization check (CWE-862) allows regular users to abuse the ExternalUploadManager to write directly into the admin backup S3 store, enabling unauthorized access to a privileged upload path.

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

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2024-36113Same product: Discourse Discourse
CVE-2025-24972Same product: Discourse Discourse
CVE-2025-31681Shared CWE-862
CVE-2023-46309Shared CWE-862
CVE-2025-27296Shared CWE-862
CVE-2025-31691Shared CWE-862
CVE-2025-64356Shared CWE-862
CVE-2025-22318Shared CWE-862
CVE-2025-26956Shared CWE-862
CVE-2025-48916Shared CWE-862

Affected Assets

discourse
discourse
2026.6.0 · 2026.1.0 — 2026.1.5 · 2026.4.0 — 2026.4.2 · 2026.5.0 — 2026.5.1

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)
  • AC-3 Access Enforcement
  • AC-6 Least Privilege
  • SI-10 Information Input Validation
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

Enforces authorization checks so regular users cannot invoke ExternalUploadManager to route S3 multipart uploads into the admin-only backup store.

prevent

Limits privileges so non-admin accounts lack the rights needed to perform backup-store uploads via the ExternalUploadManager path.

prevent

Validates that upload requests contain only permitted parameters and destinations, blocking unauthorized routing to the admin backup store.

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 full match
prevents

Explicitly requires defining, enforcing, and reviewing authorizations and least privilege, directly preventing missing 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 authentication and credentials before any access occurs eliminates the absence of authorization checks that would otherwise allow an unauthenticated actor to reach protected resources.

prevents

Requiring formal authorization of every access request before rights are granted ensures that checks for required permissions are performed, preventing missing authorization checks from being introduced.

prevents

Mandatory authorization checks and central records of granted rights ensure that every access attempt is preceded by an explicit decision rather than relying on missing checks.

mitigates

Segregating the approval of access rights from their implementation provides an independent check that reduces the impact of missing authorization checks in the resulting system configuration.

detects

By requiring competent outsiders to verify that every function enforces the need-to-know principle, the control lowers the likelihood that missing authorization checks persist undetected.

prevents

Defining authorization responsibilities and reviewing risk-treatment progress throughout the project lifecycle catches missing authorization checks before the system is deployed.

References