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Cybersecurity

VU#754548: Cinnamon's kotaemon contains improper authorization checks in Kotaemon multi‑user chat handlers

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What happened

Although select_conv contains an ownership check for the selected (file‑picker) field, all sensitive payloads (chat history, retrieval history, plot history) are returned unconditionally. Description Cinnamon's Kotaemon is an open‑source, retrieval‑augmented generation (RAG) based tool that lets you build a chatbot capable of "chatting with your documents".

In multi‑user mode, each conversation row contains a user field that identifies its owner. The four affected handlers, select_conv, delete_conv, rename_conv, and persist_chat_suggestions , query conversations using select(Conversation).where(Conversation.id == conversation_id) No predicate is included to ensure Conversation.user == user_id .

As a result, any authenticated user can operate on conversations they do not own. Impacted operations include: * select_conv – reads the full chat transcript, RAG retrieval history (verbatim excerpts from uploaded private documents), plot history, and suggestion data belonging to another user.

Key facts

  • Although select_conv — includes: an ownership check for the selected (file‑picker) field, all sensitive payloads (chat history, retrieval history, plot history) are returned unconditionally
  • In multi‑user mode, each conversation row — includes: a user field that identifies its owner

Sources & evidence