CVE-2026-21836
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 · uneditedThe HCL DominoIQ RAG feature is affected by a Broken Access Control vulnerability. Under certain circumstances, document level access restrictions will be ignored when determining what data to return from an AI query. This could enable an authenticated attacker to view sensitive data.
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 · moderate confidenceThe HCL DominoIQ RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) feature fails to enforce document-level access controls during AI query processing. When users submit AI queries, the system bypasses configured access restrictions and returns sensitive data the attacker isn't authorized to view, despite being an authenticated user.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
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
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- None
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Identify if HCL DominoIQ is installedCheck for DominoIQ installation directories, services, or binaries on the system. Common paths include /opt/hcl/dominoiq or C:\Program Files\HCL\DominoIQ. Use commands like 'ls -la /opt/hcl/' or check Windows services for DominoIQ.Affected if DominoIQ is present on the system and the RAG feature is in use.
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Verify if RAG feature is enabledLocate DominoIQ configuration files (typically in conf/ or config/ subdirectories) and check for RAG-related settings. Look for flags such as 'enableRAG', 'rag.enabled', or similar settings that indicate the RAG feature is active.Affected if The RAG feature is explicitly enabled in DominoIQ configuration.
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Review document access control settingsExamine DominoIQ's access control list (ACL) and document-level security configurations. Check if RAG query endpoints are properly scoped to enforce user-specific document permissions.Affected if RAG queries can return documents without validating whether the requesting user has access to those specific documents.
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Test RAG query behavior with restricted user accountsCreate or use a test user account with limited document access. Submit RAG queries and verify whether the response includes documents the test user should not be able to access based on their permissions.Affected if The RAG feature returns documents the test user is not authorized to view.
The environment is affected if HCL DominoIQ is running with the RAG feature enabled and document-level access controls can be bypassed during RAG queries.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
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.
From vendor dataApply the vendor patch when available. In the interim, review and restrict user access to sensitive documents in DominoIQ and consider disabling the RAG feature if the sensitivity of exposed data outweighs the functionality loss.
- Consultation3.0 h
- Implementation6.0 h
- Testing4.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
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Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2026-21836 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2026-21836 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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