CVE-2025-47288VulnerabilityPublished 29 May 2025

CVE-2025-47288: discourse-policy · Information Exposure

Affects discourse-policySource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 3.5 Low : upgrade to 0.1.1 when convenient.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 06:26 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

3.5Low

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 18% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
Patch: Available – fixed in 0.1.1

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

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: Low
User Interaction: Required
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: Low
Integrity: None
Availability: None

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Network: The vulnerable component is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed, up to and including the entire Internet. Such a vulnerability is often termed 'remotely exploitable' and can be thought of as an attack being exploitable at the protocol level one or more network hops away (e.g., across one or more routers).
Attack Complexity: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: Low: The attacker is authorized with (i.e., requires) privileges that provide basic user capabilities that could normally affect only settings and files owned by a user. Alternatively, an attacker with Low privileges may have the ability to cause an impact only to non-sensitive resources.
User Interaction: Required: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability requires a user to take some action before the vulnerability can be exploited.
Scope: Unchanged: An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.
Confidentiality: Low: There is some loss of confidentiality. Access to some restricted information is obtained, but the attacker does not have control over what information is obtained, or the amount or kind of loss is limited. The information disclosure does not cause a direct, serious loss to the impacted component.
Integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the impacted component.
Availability: None: There is no impact to availability within the impacted component.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 29 May 2025
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 2026-10-26.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponised: Public exploit code exists in Metasploit or Exploit-DB, or CISA SSVC reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

Upgrade discourse/discourse-policy to 0.1.1.

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
GitHubdiscourse/discourse-policy`pkg:github/discourse/discourse-policy`Other threats	Affected <0.1.1	Fixed in 0.1.1

Check your own hosts for these packages with threat-finder (opens in a new tab), our free open-source scanner.

AI-suggested

The primary mitigation is to upgrade the discourse-policy plugin to version 0.1.1 or later, where the vulnerability is patched. Until the patch can be applied, administrators should move any policy topics associated with private groups into restricted categories that are not publicly accessible, effectively preventing unauthorized users from viewing sensitive group membership information. Additionally, organizations should audit their Discourse instance configurations to ensure that private groups and their associated policies are not inadvertently exposed in public forums. Implementing strict access controls and regularly reviewing group memberships and topic visibility settings can further reduce the risk. Monitoring user activity and logs for unusual access patterns related to policy topics can help detect attempted exploitation. Finally, educating users about the importance of cautious interaction with policy topics can reduce the likelihood of successful exploitation requiring user interaction.

Description

Discourse Policy plugin gives the ability to confirm users have seen or done something. Prior to version 0.1.1, if there was a policy posted to a public topic that was tied to a private group then the group members could be shown to non-group members. This issue has been patched in version 0.1.1. A workaround involves moving any policy topics with private groups to restricted categories.

Impact

For European organizations using Discourse with the discourse-policy plugin, this vulnerability could lead to unintended exposure of private group memberships to unauthorized users. While the direct impact is limited to confidentiality and is considered low severity, the exposure of group membership can have reputational consequences, especially if the groups are related to sensitive projects, internal investigations, or confidential collaborations. In regulated industries such as finance, healthcare, or government sectors within Europe, unauthorized disclosure of group membership could potentially violate data protection regulations like GDPR if it leads to personal data exposure. Furthermore, adversaries could leverage this information for social engineering or targeted attacks. However, since exploitation requires some level of privileges and user interaction, the risk is somewhat mitigated. Organizations relying on Discourse for internal communications or community management should be aware of this risk and act accordingly.

CWE-200Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor (opens in a new tab)
Class weaknessLikelihood of exploit: HighCWE Top 25 (2025): #20OWASP Top 10 A01:2025: Broken Access Control (opens in a new tab)
The product exposes sensitive information to an actor that is not explicitly authorized to have access to that information.
MITRE discourages mapping vulnerabilities to this broad entry; the root cause is usually a more specific weakness.
Architecture and Design · Separation of Privilege
Compartmentalize the system to have "safe" areas where trust boundaries can be unambiguously drawn. Do not allow sensitive data to go outside of the trust boundary and always be careful when interfacing with a compartment outside of the safe area.
OWASP Cheat Sheets
Error Handling (opens in a new tab)
Logging (opens in a new tab)
Authorization (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V8.3.4 (opens in a new tab)
V14.3.3 (opens in a new tab)
V7.3.3 (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
Subverting Environment Variable Values (opens in a new tab)
ICMP Echo Request Ping (opens in a new tab)
TCP SYN Scan (opens in a new tab)
Enumerate Mail Exchange (MX) Records (opens in a new tab)
DNS Zone Transfers (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

Community reviews

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 7 Jul 2025, 21:42 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-200

Technical details

References

Community reviews

Related threats