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Description

Discourse is an open source discussion platform. Versions prior to 2025.12.2, 2026.1.1, and 2026.2.0 have an IDOR (Insecure Direct Object Reference) in `ReviewableNotesController`. When `enable_category_group_moderation` is enabled, a user belonging to a category moderation group can create or delete their own notes on **any** reviewable in the system, including reviewables in categories they do not moderate. The controller used an unscoped `Reviewable.find` and the `ensure_can_see` guard only checked whether the user could access the review queue in general, not whether they could access the specific reviewable. Only instances with `enable_category_group_moderation` enabled are affected. Staff users (admins/moderators) are not impacted as they already have access to all reviewables. The issue is patched in versions 2025.12.2, 2026.1.1, and 2026.2.0 by scoping the reviewable lookup through `Reviewable.viewable_by(current_user)`. As a workaround, disable the `enable_category_group_moderation` site setting. This removes the attack surface as only staff users will have access to the review queue.

PUBLISHED Reserved 2026-02-16 | Published 2026-02-26 | Updated 2026-02-26 | Assigner GitHub_M




MEDIUM: 4.3CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N

Problem types

CWE-863: Incorrect Authorization

Product status

< 2025.12.2
affected

>= 2026.1.0-latest, < 2026.1.1
affected

>= 2026.2.0-latest, < 2026.2.0
affected

References

github.com/...course/security/advisories/GHSA-c587-qx78-vhmx

cve.org (CVE-2026-26973)

nvd.nist.gov (CVE-2026-26973)

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