Security readout for executives and security teams
Plain-English summary
Kotaemon through 0.12.0 may let an attacker use another user’s conversation identifier to view chat history or rename or delete conversations. This creates serious confidentiality and integrity risk, particularly where chats contain sensitive business, customer, or security information.
Executive priority
Treat internet-facing or multi-user deployments as an immediate remediation priority because chat confidentiality and integrity are at risk. Determine whether sensitive information was stored, restrict exposure, and obtain a vendor-confirmed fix. Active exploitation is not established by the supplied evidence.
Technical view
The affected control.py functions—select_conv, delete_conv, rename_conv, and on_set_public_conversation—do not consistently verify that the requested conversation belongs to the acting user. This is an insecure direct object reference categorized as CWE-639. The supplied CVSS 4.0 score is 9.1.
Likely exposure
Highest exposure exists in network-accessible, multi-user Kotaemon deployments running through version 0.12.0. Single-user or strongly access-restricted instances have less practical exposure. The supplied affected-version metadata is inconsistent, so organizations should confirm applicability against the CVE record and vendor project.
Exploitation context
The supplied CVSS vector indicates network reachability, no required privileges, no user interaction, high attack complexity, and a prerequisite condition. The CVE is not listed as KEV, and the provided sources do not establish active exploitation or a public exploit.
Researcher notes
The reported weakness affects object-level authorization across four conversation handlers. Validate ownership enforcement on every server-side path, including public-conversation state changes. The source bundle names versions through 0.12.0, but its structured affected entry is ambiguous; no corrected version or explicit patch is provided.
Mitigation direction
- Identify and prioritize network-accessible Kotaemon deployments through version 0.12.0.
- Check the vendor issue and advisory for a confirmed corrected release or official mitigation.
- Restrict affected deployments to trusted users and networks pending remediation.
- Require server-side ownership checks for every conversation read, delete, rename, and publication operation.
Validation and detection
- Record the deployed Kotaemon version and whether multiple users can access the instance.
- Review control.py for ownership authorization before each affected conversation operation.
- Test that one account cannot access or modify another account’s conversations.
- Review application logs for unusual cross-account conversation access, deletion, renaming, or publication attempts.
Public sources used
Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.
Conservative CVE-to-ATT&CK context
These mappings and lookup hints may be relevant to the vulnerability behavior, CWE, affected product, or exposure path. Glexia-inferred context is not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, CWE, or CVE Program mapping.
ATT&CK lookup starting points
Use these exact CWE pages and searches to review the Glexia ATT&CK library from this CVE's weakness and description context.
CWE-639: Exact CWE lookup
Use the exact CWE identifier as the starting point before reviewing related ATT&CK behavior. Open the exact CWE lookup page first, then review the ATT&CK searches from that MITRE weakness context. This is a Glexia lookup hint, not an official ATT&CK mapping.
Open ATT&CK lookupCVE-2026-82281 mapping review
Open the CVE-to-ATT&CK bridge for reviewed, inferred, or future official mappings tied to this CVE.
Open ATT&CK lookup- Severity
- Critical
- CVSS
- 9.1 (4.0)
- Known Exploited
- No
- Published
Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:H/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
CNA and ADP enrichment extracted from CVE v5
These fields come from the CVE record and ADP containers, not from Glexia's Take. They preserve time-varying source decisions such as CISA SSVC, KEV status, CVSS metrics, and provider references.
SSVC decision data
CVSS vector scores
2 official scoresWe collect every scored CVSS vector available in the official CNA and ADP containers. When more than one version is present, the table keeps the source vectors side by side instead of collapsing them into the highest score.
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:H/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N——VulnCheckCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N2.25.2VulnCheckVulnerability scoring details
Base CVSS 4.0 score
9.1CriticalVector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:H/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
Base CVSS 3.1 score
7.4HighVector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N
Vulnerability timeline
Timeline events are normalized from CVE metadata, CNA source timelines, ADP timelines, and KEV metadata when present.
- CVE reservedCVE Program
The CVE ID was reserved by the assigning CNA.
- CVE publishedCVE Program
The CVE record was published.
- CVE updatedCVE Program
The CVE record metadata indicates this as the latest update time.
ADP provider summaries
Source materials
- CVE List V5 sourceCVE List V5
- GitHub Issue #846CVE reference, VulnCheck · issue-tracking
- https://github.com/Cinnamon/kotaemonCVE reference, VulnCheck · product
- Vulnerable code: control.pyCVE reference, VulnCheck · technical-description
- VulnCheck Advisory: Kotaemon Missing Ownership Check in Conversation FunctionsCVE reference, VulnCheck · third-party-advisory
Products and packages named in the record
CWE details
CWE links open Glexia weakness intelligence pages with official CWE context, developer remediation guidance, and related CVE mappings.
Authorization Bypass Through User-Controlled Key
Authorization Bypass Through User-Controlled Key represents a recurring weakness pattern that can create exploitable paths when design, validation, or implementation controls are missing.