MongoDB Server Security Update, December 2025

(mongodb.com)

53 points | by plorkyeran 4 hours ago

7 comments

  • kryogen1c 1 hour ago
    >proactive [...] security program

    Idk how proactive patching an exploited-in-the-wild unauth RCE is, but pr statements gonna pr i guess.

    >This [...] vuln is not a breach or compromise of MongoDB

    IANAL, but this seems like a pretty strong stance to take? Who exactly are you blaming here?

    >vulnerability was discovered internally >detected the issue

    Interesting choice of words. I wonder if their SIEM/SOC discovered a compromise, or if someone detected a tweet.

    >December 12–14 – We worked continuously

    It took 72 clock hours, assumably hundreds of man hours, to fix a malloc use after free and cstring null term bug? Maybe the user input field length part was a major design point??

    >dec 12 "detect" the issue, dec 19 cve, dec 23 first post

    Boy this sure seems like a long time for a first communication for a guaranteed compromise if internet facing bug.

    Not sure there's a security tool in the world that would stop data exfiltration via protocol error logs.

    • notepad0x90 13 minutes ago
      > IANAL, but this seems like a pretty strong stance to take? Who exactly are you blaming here?

      It's a factually statement, unless you know of some information that indicates MongoDB was breached. I think you mistook "MongoDB" there to be the software instead of the company. They meant the company, their systems and infrastructure was not compromised.

      > Interesting choice of words. I wonder if their SIEM/SOC discovered a compromise, or if someone detected a tweet.

      I highly doubt that. it could be a crash someone noticed, a code audit, internal bug-bounty,etc.. either way I wouldn't ascribe to them deceit without proof, if it was an external source, give them the benefit of doubt that they'd have said so.

      > It took 72 clock hours, assumably hundreds of man hours, to fix a malloc use after free and cstring null term bug? Maybe the user input field length part was a major design point??

      You are familiar with things like SOC and SIEM, and you're confused by this? Are you familiar with Incident Response? The act of editing the code in a text editor and committing it to a branch isn't what took 72 hours.

      > Boy this sure seems like a long time for a first communication for a guaranteed compromise if internet facing bug.

      It does not, far from it.

      > Not sure there's a security tool in the world that would stop data exfiltration via protocol error logs.

      Maybe not prevent, but certainly detect and attempt to interdict/stop is certainly possible. That's what SIEMs do if they're adequately configured. But the drawback might be considerable volume of false hits. It might be better to simply reduce exposure to the internet, or remove it entirely. Just pointing out that, at least detection is possible, even with 0 days like this.

    • neandrake 12 minutes ago
      >>This [...] vuln is not a breach or compromise of MongoDB

      >IANAL, but this seems like a pretty strong stance to take? Who exactly are you blaming here?

      You elide the context that explains it. It's a vulnerability in their MongoDB Server product, not a result of MongoDB the company/services being compromised and secrets leaked.

  • gberger 3 hours ago
    Why did it take them 4 days between publishing a CVE for the vulnerability (Dec 19th) and posting a public patch (Dec 23rd)?
    • joecool1029 2 hours ago
      Had their hands full getting sued the same day: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46403128
    • theteapot 1 hour ago
      Might not be how it appears. The CVE number can be reserved by the org and then "published" with only minimal info, then later update with full details. Looking at the meta data that's probably what happened here (not entirely sure what the update was though):

          {
          "cveId": "CVE-2025-14847",
          "assignerOrgId": "a39b4221-9bd0-4244-95fc-f3e2e07f1deb",
          "state": "PUBLISHED",
          "assignerShortName": "mongodb",
          "dateReserved": "2025-12-17T18:56:21.301Z",
          "datePublished": "2025-12-19T11:00:22.465Z",
          "dateUpdated": "2025-12-29T23:20:23.813Z"
          }
    • cebert 3 hours ago
      In the US, the last two weeks of December can be slow due to the holiday season. I wouldn’t be surprised if Mongo wasn’t as staffed as usual.
      • tanduv 5 minutes ago
        should've spun up a few more AI agents
    • computerfan494 3 hours ago
      That's a good question. I suppose that posting the commit makes it incredibly obvious how to exploit the issue, so maybe they wanted to wait a little bit longer for their on-prem users who were slow to patch?
      • philipwhiuk 2 hours ago
        Posting the CVE and then the patch is the reverse of this.
        • computerfan494 2 hours ago
          By "patch" I am talking about the public commit. Updated binaries were made available when the CVE was published.
  • macintux 3 hours ago
  • vivzkestrel 1 hour ago
    if you are using mongodb in 2026 you deserve everything headed in your direction
  • bethekidyouwant 3 hours ago
    Who has mongo open to the internet?
    • Culonavirus 18 minutes ago
      listen, I'm not saying the venn diagram between people who use mongo and people who would open it to the internet is a circle, but there is... ahem... a big overlap
    • ctxc 55 minutes ago
      Acc to a comment I read elsewhere, it's in the thousands (shodan result)
    • matt3210 3 hours ago
      Ubisoft does
  • empressplay 55 minutes ago
    lol Mongo

    Seriously.

    Mongo?

  • freakynit 1 hour ago