CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2025-68660 — Discourse is an open source discussion platform

Medium CVSS 5.4

Discourse is an open source discussion platform. In versions prior to 3.5.4, 2025.11.2, 2025.12.1, and 2026.1.0, an endpoint lets any authenticated user bypass the ai_discover_persona access controls and gain ongoing DM access to personas that may be wired to staff-only categories, RAG document sets, or automated tooling, enabling unauthorized data disclosure. Because the controller also accepts arbitrary user_id, an attacker can impersonate other accounts to trigger unwanted AI conversations on their behalf, generating confusing or abusive PM traffic. This issue is patched in versions 3.5.4, 2025.11.2, 2025.12.1, and 2026.1.0. No known workarounds are available.

Severity
Medium
CVSS
5.4 (3.1)
Published
2026-01-28
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
software/application
Weaknesses
CWE-863

Affected products

  • discourse / discourse
  • discourse / discourse / 2025.12.0
  • discourse / discourse / 2026.1.0

Showing 3 representative product identities from 4 source matches. Confirm exact affected versions with the linked vendor and NVD evidence.

Matched remediation archetype

Authorization bypass, IDOR, and cross-tenant access

This catalog composition supplies bounded fallback guidance. Explicitly reviewed curated workflows load with the complete record below.

Check exposure

  • Map object and action authorization checks across API, UI, batch, import/export, and background-job paths.
  • Identify tenant, ownership, role, and policy boundaries for affected resources and administrative operations.
  • Use synthetic fixtures to compare intended access matrices without accessing another user's real data.

Remediate safely

  • Enforce server-side authorization at each resource access and state transition using the authenticated principal and trusted tenant context.
  • Scope data queries by tenant and ownership; treat client-supplied identifiers, roles, and policy claims as untrusted.
  • Add deny-by-default policy tests for horizontal and vertical access across every affected transport.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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