In most cases, trust boundaries are violated when a secret is exposed in a source code repository or an uncontrolled deployment environment.
Unintended people who don’t need to know the secret might get access to it. They might then be able to use it to gain unwanted access to associated
services or resources.
The trust issue can be more or less severe depending on the people’s role and entitlement.
What is the potential impact?
Passwords in MongoDB are used to authenticate users against the database engine. They are associated with user accounts that are granted specific
permissions over the database and its hosted data.
If a MongoDB password leaks to an unintended audience, it can have serious consequences for the security of your database, the data stored within
it, and the applications that rely on it.
Compromise of sensitive data
If the affected service is used to store or process personally identifiable information or other sensitive data, attackers knowing an
authentication secret could be able to access it. Depending on the type of data that is compromised, it could lead to privacy violations, identity
theft, financial loss, or other negative outcomes.
In most cases, a company suffering a sensitive data compromise will face a reputational loss when the security issue is publicly disclosed.
Security downgrade
Applications relying on a MongoDB database instance can suffer a security downgrade if an access password is leaked to attackers. Depending on the
purposes the application uses the database for, consequences can range from low-severity issues, like defacement, to complete compromise.
For example, if the MongoDB instance is used as part of the authentication process of an application, attackers with access to the database will
likely be able to bypass this security mechanism.
