Search results for mongodb database security | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

System administrators have reportedly exposed almost 600 Terabytes (TB) of MongoDB database due to running outdated and unpatched versions of the NoSQL MongoDB database. The open source MongoDB is the most popular NoSQL database used by companies of all sizes, from eBay and Sourceforge to The New York Times and LinkedIn. According to Shodan's representative John Matherly, nearly 30,000 MongoDB instances are publicly accessible over the Internet without the need of any form of authentication. This huge MongoDB database isn't exposed due to a flaw in its latest version of the software, but due to the use of out-of-date and unpatched versions of the platform that fail to bind to localhost. While investigating NoSQL databases, Matherly focused on MongoDB that is growing in popularity. "It turns out that MongoDB version 2.4.14 seems to be the last version that still listened to 0.0.0.0 [in which listening is enabled for all interfaces] by default, which ...

The ransomware attacks on poorly secured MongoDB installations have doubled in just a day. A hacker going by the handle Harak1r1 is accessing, copying and deleting unpatched or badly-configured MongoDB databases and then threatening administrators to ransom in exchange of the lost data. It all started on Monday when security researcher Victor Gevers identified nearly 200 instances of a MongoDB installation that have been erased and held for ransom , asking victims to pay hefty ransoms for the data to be restored. By Tuesday, this number reached approximately 2,000 databases as reported by Shodan Founder John Matherly, and by Friday, Gevers and fellow security researcher Niall Merrigan updated this count to 10,500. However, according to recent statistics compiled by Merrigan, the number of compromised systems have reached more than double to 27,000, over the course of about 12 hours. What's worse? Initial attacks saw ransoms of 0.2 Bitcoins (nearly US$184) to the ...

Nearly 40,000 organisations running MongoDB , a NoSQL high performance and cross-platform document-oriented database, are found to be unprotected and vulnerable to hackers. Three students from University of Saarland in Germany at the Centre for IT Security – Kai Greshake, Eric Petryka and Jens Heyens – discovered that MongoDB databases running at TCP port 27017 as a service on several thousands of commercial web servers are easily accessible on the Internet. MongoDB is an open-source database used by companies of all sizes, across all industries for a wide variety of applications. MongoDB is built for scalability, performance and high availability, scaling from single server deployments to large, complex multi-site architectures. By leveraging in-memory computing, MongoDB provides high performance for both reads and writes. The German researchers said that they were able to get "read and write access" to the unsecured MongoDB databases without using any sp...

Nearly two years back, we warned users about publicly accessible MongoDB instances – almost 600 Terabytes (TB) – over the Internet which require no authentication, potentially leaving websites and servers at risk of hacking. These MongoDB instances weren't exposed due to any flaw in its software, but due to a misconfiguration (bad security practice) that let any remote attacker access MongoDB databases without using any special hacking tool. MongoDB later resolved the issue in the next version of its software by setting unrestricted remote access by default in the configuration, thousands of site administrators have not updated their servers yet. But trust me, they'll now regret this! A Hacker is now hijacking and wiping out unsecured MongoDB databases , but keeping a copy of those databases for asking administrators a ransom of 0.2 Bitcoins (nearly US$211) to return the lost data. So, admins without backups are left in a bind. In fact, the rising price of Bitcoin...

Exclusive — A security researcher has identified an unsecured server that was leaking detailed personal details of nearly half a million Indian citizens... thanks to another MongoDB database instance that company left unprotected on the Internet accessible to anyone without password. In a report shared with The Hacker News, Bob Diachenko  disclosed that two days ago he found a 4.1 GB-sized highly sensitive database online, named " GNCTD ," containing information collected on 458,388 individuals located in Delhi, including their  Aadhaar numbers and voter ID numbers. Though it's not clear if the exposed database is linked to the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (GNCTD), Diachenko found that the database contains references and email addresses with "transerve.com" domain for users registered with "senior supervisor," and "super admin" designations. Based upon the information available on  Transerve Technologies  webs...

A recently disclosed security vulnerability in MongoDB has come under active exploitation in the wild, with over 87,000 potentially susceptible instances identified across the world. The vulnerability in question is CVE-2025-14847 (CVSS score: 8.7), which allows an unauthenticated attacker to remotely leak sensitive data from the MongoDB server memory. It has been codenamed MongoBleed . "A flaw in zlib compression allows attackers to trigger information leakage," OX Security said . "By sending malformed network packets, an attacker can extract fragments of private data." The problem is rooted in MongoDB Server's zlib message decompression implementation ("message_compressor_zlib.cpp"). It affects instances with zlib compression enabled, which is the default configuration. Successful exploitation of the shortcoming could allow an attacker to extract sensitive information from MongoDB servers, including user information, passwords, and API keys. ...

MongoDB on Saturday disclosed it's actively investigating a security incident that has led to unauthorized access to "certain" corporate systems, resulting in the exposure of customer account metadata and contact information. The American database software company  said  it first detected anomalous activity on December 13, 2023, and that it immediately activated its incident response efforts. It further noted that "this unauthorized access has been going on for some period of time before discovery," but emphasized it's not "aware of any exposure to the data that customers store in MongoDB Atlas." It did not disclose the exact time period of the compromise. In light of the breach, MongoDB recommends that all customers be on the lookout for social engineering and phishing attacks, enforce phishing-resistant multi-factor authentication (MFA), as well as rotate their MongoDB Atlas passwords. That's not all. The company said it's also expe...

Detecting leaked credentials is only half the battle. The real challenge—and often the neglected half of the equation—is what happens after detection. New research from GitGuardian's State of Secrets Sprawl 2025 report reveals a disturbing trend: the vast majority of exposed company secrets discovered in public repositories remain valid for years after detection, creating an expanding attack surface that many organizations are failing to address. According to GitGuardian's analysis of exposed secrets across public GitHub repositories, an alarming percentage of credentials detected as far back as 2022 remain valid today: "Detecting a leaked secret is just the first step," says GitGuardian's research team. "The true challenge lies in swift remediation." Why Exposed Secrets Remain Valid This persistent validity suggests two troubling possibilities: either organizations are unaware their credentials have been exposed (a security visibility problem),...

A high-severity security flaw has been disclosed in MongoDB that could allow unauthenticated users to read uninitialized heap memory. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-14847 (CVSS score: 8.7), has been described as a case of improper handling of length parameter inconsistency , which arises when a program fails to appropriately tackle scenarios where a length field is inconsistent with the actual length of the associated data. "Mismatched length fields in zlib compressed protocol headers may allow a read of uninitialized heap memory by an unauthenticated client," according to a description of the flaw in CVE.org. The flaw impacts the following versions of the database - MongoDB 8.2.0 through 8.2.3 MongoDB 8.0.0 through 8.0.16 MongoDB 7.0.0 through 7.0.26 MongoDB 6.0.0 through 6.0.26 MongoDB 5.0.0 through 5.0.31 MongoDB 4.4.0 through 4.4.29 All MongoDB Server v4.2 versions All MongoDB Server v4.0 versions All MongoDB Server v3.6 versions The issue has b...

Every parent should think twice before handing out Internet-connected toys or smart toys to their children, as these creepy toys pose a different sort of danger: privacy and data security risks for kids who play with them. This same incident was happened over a year ago when Hong Kong toymaker VTech was hacked , which exposed personal details, including snaps of parents and children and chat logs, of about 6.4 million children around the world. Now, in the latest security failing of the internet-connected smart toys, more than 2 Million voice recordings of children and their parents have been exposed, along with email addresses and passwords for over 820,000 user accounts. And What's even Worse? The hackers locked this data and held it for Ransom. California-based Spiral Toys' line of internet-connected stuffed animal toys, CloudPets , which allow children and relatives to send recorded voicemails back and forth, reportedly left the voice messages recorded between pare...

Criminals don’t need to be clever all the time; they just follow the easiest path in: trick users, exploit stale components, or abuse trusted systems like OAuth and package registries. If your stack or habits make any of those easy, you’re already a target. This week’s ThreatsDay highlights show exactly how those weak points are being exploited — from overlooked misconfigurations to sophisticated new attack chains that turn ordinary tools into powerful entry points. Lumma Stealer Stumbles After Doxxing Drama Decline in Lumma Stealer Activity After Doxxing Campaign The activity of the Lumma Stealer (aka Water Kurita) information stealer has witnessed a "sudden drop" since last months after the identities of five alleged core group members were exposed as part of what's said to be an aggressive underground exposure campaign dubbed Lumma Rats since late August 2025. The targeted individuals are affiliated with the malware's development and administ...

Passwork is positioned as an on-premises unified platform for both password and secrets management, aiming to address the increasing complexity of credential storage and sharing in modern organizations. The platform recently received a major update that reworks all the core mechanics. Passwork 7 introduces significant changes to how credentials are organized, accessed, and managed, reflecting feedback from real-world users. The redesign prioritizes usability and security, with a focus on streamlining workflows and making key features more accessible. Passwork isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel. Instead, it focuses on solving a very real problem: how do businesses keep credentials organized, secure, and accessible without adding complexity or risk? In this article, we’ll look at what Passwork 7 delivers, how it fits into a business environment, and what makes it different. Below is a walkthrough of its main features and workflows. Getting started: User experience and onboarding The...

What's the price of unprotected IT infrastructure? Cybercrime Magazine says that global damages will surpass $6 billion as soon as 2021 . Here we'll go through some of the most frequent and emerging causes of data breaches in 2019 and see how to address them in a timely manner. Misconfigured Cloud Storage It's hard to find a day without a security incident involving unprotected AWS S3 storage, Elasticsearch, or MongoDB. A global study from Thales and the Ponemon Institute states that only 32% of organizations believe protecting their data in a cloud is their own responsibility. Worse, according to the same report, 51% of the organizations still do not use encryption or tokenization to protect sensitive data in the cloud. McAfee confirms, claiming that 99% of cloud and IaaS misconfigurations fall into the realm of end users' control and remain unnoticed. Marco Rottigni, Chief Technical Security Officer EMEA at Qualys , explains the problem: "Some of th...

New research has uncovered that publishers of over 100 Visual Studio Code (VS Code) extensions leaked access tokens that could be exploited by bad actors to update the extensions, posing a critical software supply chain risk. "A leaked VS Code Marketplace or Open VSX PAT [personal access token] allows an attacker to directly distribute a malicious extension update across the entire install base," Wiz security researcher Rami McCarthy said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "An attacker who discovered this issue would have been able to directly distribute malware to the cumulative 150,000 install base." The cloud security firm noted in many cases publishers failed to account for the fact that VS Code extensions, while distributed as .vsix files, can be unzipped and inspected, exposing hard-coded secrets embedded into them. In all, Wiz said it found over 550 validated secrets, distributed across more than 500 extensions from hundreds of distinct publishers....

MacKeeper anti-virus company is making headlines today for its lax security that exposed the database of 13 Million Mac users' records including names, email addresses, usernames, password hashes, IP addresses, phone numbers, and system information. MacKeeper is a suite of software that claims to make Apple Macs more secure and stable, but today the anti-virus itself need some extra protection after a data breach exposed the personal and sensitive information for Millions of its customers. The data breach was discovered by Chris Vickery , a white hat hacker who was able to download 13 Million customer records by simply entering a selection of IP addresses, with no username or password required to access the data. 21 GB Trove of MacKeeper Customer Data Leaked 31-year-old Vickery said he uncovered the 21 GB trove of MacKeeper customer data in a moment of boredom while searching for openly accessible databases on Shodan – a specialized search engine that looks fo...