# CVE-2022-24850: Category group permissions leaked in Discourse

> Normal users can view category group permissions, leaking sensitive access control information that should be restricted to administrators.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.3 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 14 Apr 2022
- **Updated:** 23 Apr 2025
- **Also known as:** BIT-discourse-2022-24850, GHSA-34xr-ff4w-mcpf

## What is CVE-2022-24850?

CVE-2022-24850 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Discourse Discourse, published on 14 Apr 2022. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

Discourse is an open source platform for community discussion. A category's group permissions settings can be viewed by anyone that has access to the category. As a result, a normal user is able to see whether a group has read/write permissions in the category even though the information should only be available to the users that can manage a category. This issue is patched in the latest stable, beta and tests-passed versions of Discourse. There are no workarounds for this problem.

Weakness: CWE-200 (Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-24850?

1 open source package ship an affected version, including discourse. It affects 1 product.


| Package | Ecosystem | Affected | Fixed in |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `discourse` | Bitnami | All versions | 2.8.2 |

Products: Discourse Discourse.

## How do I fix CVE-2022-24850?

Upgrade discourse to 2.8.2 or later.

## Is CVE-2022-24850 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-24850 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Discourse Discourse

- [CVE-2021-41163](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-41163/): RCE via malicious SNS subscription payload (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2022-36066](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-36066/): Discourse vulnerable to RCE via admins uploading maliciously zipped file (critical 9.1)
- [CVE-2022-39356](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-39356/): Discourse user account takeover via email and invite link (high 8.9)
- [CVE-2023-22468](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-22468/): Discourse vulnerable to Cross-site Scripting in local oneboxes (high 8.8)
- [CVE-2026-27934](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-27934/): Discourse leaks private topic title and post excerpt via user action API endpoint (high 8.7)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2022-24850 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2022-24850 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Discourse Discourse, published on 14 Apr 2022. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-24850 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected packages and fixed versions:
- discourse (Bitnami): affected all versions; fixed in 2.8.2

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-24850/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-24850/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2022-24850
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-24850
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2022-24850

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-24850/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.