CVE-2023-23622 Discourse: Presence of read restricted topics may be leaked if tagged with a tag that is visible to all users

Discourse is an open-source discussion platform. Prior to version 3.0.1 of the stable branch and version 3.1.0.beta2 of the beta and tests-passed branches, the count of topics displayed for a tag is a count of all regular topics regardless of whether the topic is in a read restricted category or not. As a result, any users can technically poll a sensitive tag to determine if a new topic is created in a category which the user does not have excess to.

In version 3.0.1 of the stable branch and version 3.1.0.beta2 of the beta and tests-passed branches, the count of topics displayed for a tag defaults to only counting regular topics which are not in read restricted categories. Staff users will continue to see a count of all topics regardless of the topic’s category read restrictions.