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CVE-2026-55493medium6.5

HotCRP: comment-author search exposes anonymous commenter identities

Impact

HotCRP is conference review software. Starting with 2.101, the cmt: search term checks whether a comment is visible to the searching user but fails to check whether the commenter's identity should be visible. A cmt:USER search can therefore match a paper with a visible comment authored by USER even when the comment is supposed to be anonymous. An authenticated user with access to the search can infer the author of an anonymous comment, compromising reviewer anonymity. Comments that the user cannot see remain excluded from search results. The advisory prose identifies 3.3 as fixed, its…

Source excerpt · GitHub_M

Affected packages

This source has no supported package-version data for matching. You can read the advisory here, but this record alone cannot power a dependency check.

Affected products

Vendor version evidence. Product records are separate from automatic dependency matching.

kohler · GitHub_M

hotcrp

1 range
GitHub_M version evidence

Compare with this publisher’s ranges. This does not inspect your installation.

affected

>= 2.101, < 3.3

unaffected

unknown

Other versions: unknown

Original source description

HotCRP is conference review software. Starting with 2.101, the cmt: search term checks whether a comment is visible to the searching user but fails to check whether the commenter's identity should be visible. A cmt:USER search can therefore match a paper with a visible comment authored by USER even when the comment is supposed to be anonymous. An authenticated user with access to the search can infer the author of an anonymous comment, compromising reviewer anonymity. Comments that the user cannot see remain excluded from search results. The advisory prose identifies 3.3 as fixed, its affected-version metadata excludes 3.3, and the verified repository tag 3.3 already contains the identity-check fix; however, its patched-version metadata instead lists 3.3.1. This fixed-version source conflict remains unresolved.

Inside the record

Evidence available

Package identity · not supplied
Version evidence
Remediation guidance · not supplied
Weakness classification
Additional publishers · not supplied

Describes the evidence in this view, not whether the product is safe.

Original records

CVE-2026-55493

View the latest unmodified CVE JSON from the official source. It may be newer than this imported page.

cve.new JSON →

Underlying weaknesses

The source’s classification of what caused the vulnerability.

CWE-863 ↗

CWE-863: Incorrect Authorization

GitHub_M

Related →
Contributing organizations · 1
GitHub_M

Assigning organization

2026-10-30

What changed

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Large field values are marked as truncated previews. Original source snapshots remain retained.

References

3 sources
github.com/kohler/hotcrp/security/advisories/GHSA-x3g6-4c5h-7p29
Security advisoryGitHub_M
github.com/kohler/hotcrp/commit/c4b008e756650db3063e8dd8300127936aae9ec1
PatchGitHub_M
github.com/kohler/hotcrp/releases/tag/v3.3
Release notesGitHub_M