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posted by cmn32480 on Friday January 13 2017, @10:41PM   Printer-friendly
from the mongo-like-candy dept.

The rise in ransomware attacks on MongoDB installations prompted the database maker last week to issue advice on how to avoid being victimized.

As of Sunday, security researcher and Microsoft developer Niall Merrigan identified more than 27,000 MongoDB databases seized by ransomware. By Tuesday afternoon Pacific Time, an online spreadsheet maintained by Merrigan and fellow security researcher Victor Gevers listed 32,643 victims.

The attacks involve hackers who copy data from insecure databases, delete the original, and ask for a ransom of a few hundred dollars worth of Bitcoin to return the stolen data back to the owner.

MongoDB, like other NoSQL databases, has suffered from security shortcomings for years. Trustwave called out MongoDB in 2013. Security researcher John Matherly did so again in 2015.

Where MySQL, PostgreSQL, and other relational databases tend to default to local installation and some form of authorization, MongoDB databases are exposed to the internet by default, and don't require credentials immediately by default.

MongoDB's security checklist is here. The company has stated it is the user's responsibility to make these changes to the default configuration.


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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by mechanicjay on Saturday January 14 2017, @12:29AM

    by mechanicjay (7) <reversethis-{gro ... a} {yajcinahcem}> on Saturday January 14 2017, @12:29AM (#453624) Homepage Journal

    ....but I really don't blame MongoDB for having port 27017 open by default.

    I would agree that a system should have a firewall in place. But a *MUCH* more sane approach would be to bind to 127.0.0.1:27017 rather than *:27017. This covers the case of working OTB for local BS use, but if you need to open it up more, you need to configure it.

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    My VMS box beat up your Windows box.
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