• Home
  • Cyber Crime
  • Cyber warfare
  • APT
  • Data Breach
  • Deep Web
  • Digital ID
  • Hacking
  • Hacktivism
  • Intelligence
  • Internet of Things
  • Laws and regulations
  • Malware
  • Mobile
  • Reports
  • Security
  • Social Networks
  • Terrorism
  • ICS-SCADA
  • POLICIES
  • Contact me
MUST READ

Google fined $314M for misusing idle Android users' data

 | 

A flaw in Catwatchful spyware exposed logins of +62,000 users

 | 

China-linked group Houken hit French organizations using zero-days

 | 

Cybercriminals Target Brazil: 248,725 Exposed in CIEE One Data Breach

 | 

Europol shuts down Archetyp Market, longest-running dark web drug marketplace

 | 

Kelly Benefits data breach has impacted 550,000 people, and the situation continues to worsen as the investigation progresses

 | 

Cisco removed the backdoor account from its Unified Communications Manager

 | 

U.S. Sanctions Russia's Aeza Group for aiding crooks with bulletproof hosting

 | 

Qantas confirms customer data breach amid Scattered Spider attacks

 | 

CVE-2025-6554 is the fourth Chrome zero-day patched by Google in 2025

 | 

U.S. CISA adds TeleMessage TM SGNL flaws to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog

 | 

A sophisticated cyberattack hit the International Criminal Court

 | 

Esse Health data breach impacted 263,000 individuals

 | 

Europol dismantles €460M crypto scam targeting 5,000 victims worldwide

 | 

CISA and U.S. Agencies warn of ongoing Iranian cyber threats to critical infrastructure

 | 

U.S. CISA adds Citrix NetScaler flaw to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog

 | 

Canada bans Hikvision over national security concerns

 | 

Denmark moves to protect personal identity from deepfakes with new copyright law

 | 

Ahold Delhaize data breach affected over 2.2 Million individuals

 | 

Facebook wants access to your camera roll for AI photo edits

 | 
  • Home
  • Cyber Crime
  • Cyber warfare
  • APT
  • Data Breach
  • Deep Web
  • Digital ID
  • Hacking
  • Hacktivism
  • Intelligence
  • Internet of Things
  • Laws and regulations
  • Malware
  • Mobile
  • Reports
  • Security
  • Social Networks
  • Terrorism
  • ICS-SCADA
  • POLICIES
  • Contact me
  • Home
  • Breaking News
  • Hacking
  • Security
  • Experts disclose details of Apache Cassandra DB RCE

Experts disclose details of Apache Cassandra DB RCE

Pierluigi Paganini February 16, 2022

Researchers disclose a now-patched remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability in the Apache Cassandra database software.

JFrog researchers publicly disclosed details of a now-patched high-severity security vulnerability (CVE-2021-44521) in Apache Cassandra database software that could be exploited by remote attackers to achieve code execution on affected installations.

Apache Cassandra is an open-source NoSQL distributed database used by thousands of companies.

“JFrog’s Security Research team recently disclosed an RCE (remote code execution) issue in Apache Cassandra, which has been assigned to CVE-2021-44521 (CVSS 8.4).” reads the analsyis published by JFrog. “This Apache security vulnerability is easy to exploit and has the potential to wreak havoc on systems, but luckily only manifests in non-default configurations of Cassandra.”

Cassandra offers the functionality of creating user-defined-functions (UDFs) that allow to perform custom processing of data in the database.

Admins can use Java and JavaScript to write UDFs. In JavaScript it leverages the Nashorn engine in the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) which is not guaranteed to be secure when accepting untrusted code

JFrog researchers that discovered that when the configuration for user-defined functions (UDFs) are enabled, threat actors could leverage the Nashorn engine to escape the sandbox and achieve remote code execution.

“For example, running the following Nashorn JavaScript code allows execution of an arbitrary shell command –

java.lang.Runtime.getRuntime().exec("touch hacked")

Cassandra’s development team decided to implement a custom sandbox around the UDF execution which uses two mechanisms to restrict the UDF code” states the report.“

Experts noticed that the exploitation is possible when the cassandra.yaml configuration file contains the following definitions:

  • enable_user_defined_functions: true
  • enable_scripted_user_defined_functions: true
  • enable_user_defined_functions_threads: false

“When the option is set to false, all invoked UDF functions run in the Cassandra daemon thread, which has a security manager with some permissions. We will show how to abuse these permissions to achieve sandbox escape and RCE.” continues the analysis.

Experts shared a PoC to create a new file named “hacked” on the Cassandra server

Apache released versions 3.0.26, 3.11.12, and 4.0.2 to address the vulnerability, it adds a new flag “allow_extra_insecure_udfs” that’s set to false by default, it prevents turning off the security manager and blocks access to java.lang.System..

Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook

[adrotate banner=”9″][adrotate banner=”12″]

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, RCE)

[adrotate banner=”5″]

[adrotate banner=”13″]


facebook linkedin twitter

Apache Cassandra Hacking hacking news information security news IT Information Security Pierluigi Paganini RCE Security Affairs Security News

you might also like

Pierluigi Paganini July 04, 2025
Google fined $314M for misusing idle Android users' data
Read more
Pierluigi Paganini July 04, 2025
A flaw in Catwatchful spyware exposed logins of +62,000 users
Read more

leave a comment

newsletter

Subscribe to my email list and stay
up-to-date!

    recent articles

    Google fined $314M for misusing idle Android users' data

    Laws and regulations / July 04, 2025

    A flaw in Catwatchful spyware exposed logins of +62,000 users

    Malware / July 04, 2025

    China-linked group Houken hit French organizations using zero-days

    APT / July 03, 2025

    Cybercriminals Target Brazil: 248,725 Exposed in CIEE One Data Breach

    Data Breach / July 03, 2025

    Europol shuts down Archetyp Market, longest-running dark web drug marketplace

    Cyber Crime / July 03, 2025

    To contact me write an email to:

    Pierluigi Paganini :
    pierluigi.paganini@securityaffairs.co

    LEARN MORE

    QUICK LINKS

    • Home
    • Cyber Crime
    • Cyber warfare
    • APT
    • Data Breach
    • Deep Web
    • Digital ID
    • Hacking
    • Hacktivism
    • Intelligence
    • Internet of Things
    • Laws and regulations
    • Malware
    • Mobile
    • Reports
    • Security
    • Social Networks
    • Terrorism
    • ICS-SCADA
    • POLICIES
    • Contact me

    Copyright@securityaffairs 2024

    We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept All”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. However, you may visit "Cookie Settings" to provide a controlled consent.
    Cookie SettingsAccept All
    Manage consent

    Privacy Overview

    This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities...
    Necessary
    Always Enabled
    Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
    Non-necessary
    Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
    SAVE & ACCEPT