Cross-site Scripting (XSS)Weakness · CWE-79

CVE-2026-55674

CRITICAL · 9.3 CVSS v3.1 Published 2026-08-17
No fix yet
No fix has been published. The vendor has not shipped a fixed release or patch. You remain exposed.
See remediation →
100/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
Remotely reachable No privileges Brand new

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
Discourse is an open-source discussion platform. Prior to 2026.1.6, 2026.5.2, 2026.6.1, and 2026.7.0, an unauthenticated attacker could send a single request with a crafted color_scheme_id (or dark_scheme_id) cookie to inject arbitrary HTML into a Discourse page. Because the cookie value was rendered into a color scheme tag without escaping, the attacker could break out of the attribute and inject a tag that bypassed Discourse's nonce-based Content Security Policy, resulting in arbitrary JavaScript execution in visitors' browsers. This issue is fixed in versions 2026.1.6, 2026.5.2, 2026.6.1, and 2026.7.0.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis
How this class of weakness works · CWE-79

Untrusted input is placed into a web page without being neutralised, so an attacker's markup or script executes in another user's browser. That can hijack sessions, capture keystrokes, or silently perform actions as the victim. Fixing it properly means context-aware output encoding everywhere data meets HTML, backed by a content-security policy as a second line of defence.

General guidance for the cross-site scripting (xss) class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
Required
Scope
Changed
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
None

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

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

dbcve · scoped
Recommended fix Moderate confidence

Upgrade to Discourse version 2026.1.6, 2026.5.2, 2026.6.1, or 2026.7.0 (choose the appropriate release line for your installation)

  1. 1. Identify your current Discourse version by checking the /admin dashboard or running `cd /var/discourse && git rev-parse HEAD`
  2. 2. Back up your Discourse instance including database and uploads before upgrading
  3. 3. For Docker-based installations: run `cd /var/discourse && ./launcher rebuild app` to upgrade to the latest version
  4. 4. For source installations: run `git pull` and then `bundle install --deployment` followed by `bundle exec rake db:migrate`
  5. 5. Verify the upgrade was successful by checking the version in /admin dashboard shows 2026.1.6, 2026.5.2, 2026.6.1, or 2026.7.0
  6. 6. Clear browser cookies for the site to remove any potentially malicious color_scheme_id cookies
Caveat Review Discourse release notes for your target version for any breaking changes or required migration steps

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

No vendor fix exists The vendor has not published a patch for this.

There is no version to upgrade to and no patch to apply. Every affected install stays exposed until the vendor ships a fix — or somebody else builds one.

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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2026-55674 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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