Moderator privilege escalation via arbitrary post identifier
Published Mar 20, 2026 · Updated Mar 20, 2026
Improper privilege management in affected Discourse releases allows remote authenticated users with moderator access to edit protected site policy documents. The suspend and silence endpoint accepts an arbitrary post_id and uses it without enforcing the special edit restriction on Terms of Service, guidelines, and privacy-policy posts. A moderator account and a crafted request are required; the bounded consequence is unauthorized modification of those public policy documents.
Summary
What happened
Improper privilege management in affected Discourse releases allows remote authenticated users with moderator access to edit protected site policy documents. The suspend and silence endpoint accepts an arbitrary post_id and uses it without enforcing the special edit restriction on Terms of Service, guidelines, and privacy-policy posts. A moderator account and a crafted request are required; the bounded consequence is unauthorized modification of those public policy documents.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2026-30888
- Published
- Mar 20, 2026
- Updated
- Mar 20, 2026
- Vendor
- Discourse
- Product
- Discourse
- Classifications
- CWE-269, T1190
- Attack vector
- network
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Mar 20, 2026CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Mar 20, 2026Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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Is a vulnerable build present?
Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.
- Affected versionversion=>= 2026.1.0-latest, < 2026.1.2
- Affected versionversion=>= 2026.2.0-latest, < 2026.2.1
- Affected versionversion=< 2026.3.0-latest.1
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Published CVSS scores
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Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
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Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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