Your MongoDB Community Edition database can probably be a lot more secure than it is today, since Community Edition provides a wide range of capabilities for securing your system, and you are probably not using them all. If you are worried about cyber-threats, take action reduce your anxiety!

1. Low Hanging Fruit:
Securing Your Basic
MongoDB Installation

2. About: Tom Spitzer,
VP, Engineering, EC Wise
EC Wise builds/enables Complex Secure Solutions
Software Products / Service Delivery Platforms / Cyber Security
Key Practices: Security, Secure Software Development, Intelligent Systems, Data
Mature, International
Offices and customers: North and South America, Asia
~ 60 employees, senior experienced teams
Founded 1998
Prior to EC Wise I developed eCommerce and ERP systems

3. Learning Objectives
1. Understand how attackers are able to compromise other people’s data
2. Configure MongoDB instances securely
3. Encrypt data in transit
4. Set up MongoDB Authentication
5. Manage users, roles, and privileges, so that when a user logs in, that
user has access to a set of role based privileges
6. Know how to use Read Only Views to improve security
7. Benefits of using MongoDB Atlas
8. Have intelligent internal discussions about locking down MongoDB instances

4. Top Risks / Common Attacks
Ransomware – 2017 - “27,000 MongoDB servers” in January, WannaCry in May
Of course, affected MongoDB servers did not have authentication enabled!
DDOS, Steganography, “SQL/NoSQL Injection”, system hijacking
Political destabilization / infrastructure compromise
Massive data theft via “Advanced Persistent Threats”: Equifax, Yahoo, Target …
See references
for details

5. Slide 5
Common Weaknesses / Mitigations - Access
Weaknesses
Authentication weak or not enabled
Overly permissive, inappropriate, and
unused privileges
Abuse & lax management of privileged
and service accounts
e.g. do DBAs really require always-on
access to application data?
Mitigations
Least privilege
“Strong” authentication
Multiple MongoDB options
Access restrictions
Role Based Access Control
Account monitoring,
especially for servers

6. Slide 6
Common Weaknesses / Mitigations
– Surface Area
Weaknesses
Lack of Control of Info Assets
Storage media not secured
Too much info generally available
Mitigations
Inventory – what, where, how
Reduce surface area
Dispose of data that is no
longer needed;
(archive / delete)
Devalue data through encryption,
tokenization, masking
Pay attention to key management

7. Slide 7
Common Weaknesses / Mitigations – Practices
Weaknesses
Failure to apply patches
Risky DB features enabled
Weak application security
Lack of visibility into DB
and network activity
Mitigations
Create patch friendly environment
Disable risky DB features
-- noscripting
Take advantage of OWASP tools,
strategies
Move controls closer to the data itself
Log sensitive operations
Enterprise: Consider DLP or SIEM

8. I. Secure connectivity to and between servers
Secure Connectivity reduces Surface Area
MongoDB TLS (SSL successor) hierarchy
Walk through enabling TLS
Configuration options
Code examples

9. PKI is acronym laden!
MongoDB
TLS Hierarchy

10. CRUD API calls over TLS
Internal Traffic over TLS
CA Certificates File
Server Key &
Certificate PEM File
DB Server 1
DriverClient
Machine
CA Certificates File
CA Certificates File
Server Key &
Certificate PEM File
DB Server 3
CA Certificates File
Server Key &
Certificate PEM File
DB Server 2
MongoDB
TLS protected
communications

11. SSL/TLS configuration – Create server .pem files
# Initialize CA by creating PK for it
$ openssl genrsa -out CAKey.key -aes256
# Create CA certificate
$ openssl req -x509 -new -extensions v3_ca -key CAKey.key -out CA-cert.crt
# create key file and Certificate Signing Request for each server
# will prompt for information used to create Distinguished Name or DN
# Country, State/Province; Locality; Organization Name; Org Unit; Common Name; Email
$ openssl req -new -nodes -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout serverX.key -out serverX.csr
# have CA "sign" each server's CSR and generate server's public Cert
$openssl x509 -CA ./CA/CA-cert.crt -CAkey ./CA ./CA/CAkey.key -CAcreateserial -req
-in ./CSR/serverX.csr - out ./CERTS/serverX.crt
# create .pem file for each server
$ cat serverX.key serverX.crt > serverX.pem
# copy .pem and host CERT file to config directory
$ cp serverX.pem CA-cert.crt /mongodb/config/
Note: example creates self-signed certificate,
not recommended for production. For
production, have a CA create a cert; to do so
run the openSSL command to create a CSR,
and send it to your CA.
This process is more fully explained at
OpenSSL Essentials
#update MongDB Config file with SSL info
net:
port:27017
bindIP: 10.1.1.1
ssl:
mode: requireSSL OR preferSSL
PEMKeyFile: /mongodb/config/serverX.pem
CAFile: /mongodb/config/CA-cert.crt
Note:.pem is a
container file format

12. SSL/TLS configuration – Create Client .pem file
# generate client key and CSR, again it will prompt for DN components
# note that DN has to be different from server DN, can use different Org Unit
$ openssl req -new -nodes -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout rootuser.key -out rootuser.csr
# submit client CSR to CA for signing and Cert generation
$ openssl x509 - CA ./CA/CA-cert.crt -CAKey ./CA/CAKey -CAcreateserial
-req -in ./CSR/rootuser.csr -out ./CERTS/rootuser.crt
# concatenate client .pem
$ cat mongokey/rootuser.key ssl/CERTS/rootuser.crt > mongokey/rootuser.pem
# get client Cert subject details
$ openssl x509 -in mongokey/rootuser.pem -inform PEM -subject -nameopt RFC2253
[subject=emailAddress=tspitzer@ecwise.com,CN=root,OU=ECWiseClients,O=ECWise,L=SR,ST=CA,C=US]
Note: consider secure
repository for key storage, e.g.
keystore service in Java or
third party key manager; also
Protect .pem file directories
Note: be sure that client and
server certs have different
DNs, i.e. that at least one DN
component, or RDN differs

13. SSL/TLS configuration – restart with SSL
Restart mongod
[ts@SRDevLnxSvr02 ~]$ mongod -f /etc/mongod.conf
Provide CERT to client , and connect with SSL
[usert@Client ~]$ mongo --ssl --host server1 –sslPEMKeyFile ./mongokey/rootuser.pem --sslCAFile=CACert.crt
See appendices for application code examples

14. II. Authentication: Comparison of Options
Username /
Password
Local CA
Certificates
File
Certificate
1. Challenge/Response
(SCRAM-SHA-1) – based on RFC5802)
2. x.509 Certificate (requires CA)
Authentication Method Clear Text Password Identity Location
Challenge/Response
(SCRAM-SHA-1)
No (Digest) Internal
x.509 Certificate No (Digital Signature) External
Authentication Strategy Comparisons
Addresses
“Weak Authentication”
vulnerability

15. SCRAM-SHA-1:
Enable authentication, create accounts
Start MongoDB without access control
Connect in instance
Create user administrator
Restart instance with access control
$ mongod -f /etc/mongod.conf
Connect and authenticate as user administrator
mongo --ssl --host mongod_host --sslCAFile=/etc/ssl/mongodb.pem
-uUserAdmin -ppassword abc123
Create additional users
use admin
db.createUser(
{
user: "UserAdmin",
pwd: "abc123",
roles: [ { role: "userAdminAnyDatabase",
db: "admin" } ]
}
)
in /etc/mongod.conf
security.authorization: enabled

16. Slide 16
Note Client vs. Member
authentication capabilities
Authentication
using x.509 Certs

17. x.509 authentication: Create,assign, enable Certs
Create local certification authority or use third party
Generate and sign certificates for client and servers in replica set
Server and client certs must differ in organization part of DNs
RS member O, OU, and DC components must match
Start MongoDB replica set instances without access control
Initialize replica set
Update config.json
Restart replica set in x.509 mode (at command line or use config options)
mongod --replSet set509 --port $mport --sslMode requireSSL --clusterAuthMode x509 /
--sslCAFile root-ca.pem --sslAllowInvalidHostnames /
--sslPEMKeyFile <path to TLS/SSL certificate and key PEM file> --sslClusterFile ${cluster}.pem

18. Client Authentication
Examples
SCRAM-SHA-1
> db.getSiblingDB("admin").auth(
{
mechanism: "SCRAM-SHA-1",
user: "dbmaster",
pwd: "adminpasswd123",
digestPassword: true
}
);
-- create user
db.getSiblingDB("$external").runCommand(
{
createUser:
"CN=user,OU=OrgUnit,O=Org,L=Location,
ST=State, C=Country",
roles: [
{ role: 'readWrite', db: 'test' },
{ role: 'userAdminAnyDatabase', db: 'admin' }
] } )
-- Log in
> db.getSiblingDB("$external").auth(
{
mechanism: "MONGODB-X509",
user: "CN=user,OU=OrgUnit,O=Org,
L=Location,ST=State,C=Country" }
);
x.509 Certificate
FQDN
Client names must
match DN in cert

19. III. User & Role Management in MongoDB
Addresses “Overly permissive, inappropriate, and unused
privileges” vulnerability
Enable Access Control for authentication
Set up users and roles, applicable to both humans and services
Enforce the Least Privilege strategy we discussed earlier
Bind users and roles to machines or (sub)networks with
Authentication Restriction

20. Use Roles to Manage Privilege Assignments
Privilege allows an action on a resource.
MongoDB defines a “bunch” of privileged operations.
Roles are defined pairings of resources and actions that
you can assign users
Sixteen built-in roles, you have probably read about them
read, readWrite, dbAdmin, clusterAdmin, backup, restore, etc..
Create custom roles, assign users to roles per the scripts on following slides
class Authorization Model
Permission
Resource
Role
Action
User

21. User & Role Examples based on Mini-Clinic app*
Obviously, a medical clinic needs to be secure
Roles – Scheduler, Practitioner, Pharmacist, Auditor
Objects – Patient, Encounter, Observation, Prescription
Operations – Schedule Encounter, Make Diagnosis, Prescribe Medication
Mini-Clinic
Website
Mini-Clinic Restful
Services MongoDB
*based on
HL7 Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources

22. Mini Clinic Role Mapping
Role Data
Patient Encounters Observation
Medication
Order Medication
CUD R CUD R CUD R CUD R CUD R
Scheduler
√ (only
name) √ √
Practitioner
√ (no
national
ID) √ √ √ √ √ √
Pharmacist √ √ √ √
Auditor √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √
CUD = Create/Update/Delete
R = Read

23. Slide 23
User and Role Management Examples
db = db.getSiblingDB('admin');
//create scheduler
db.createRole(
{
"role": "scheduler",
"privileges": [
{
"resource": {"db": "mini_clinic",
"collection": "scheduler_patient"},
"actions": ["find"]
},
{
"resource": {"db": "mini_clinic",
"collection": "encounter"},
"actions": ["find","insert","update"]
}
],
"roles": []
“authenticationRestrictions”:
[{ “clientSource”: [“192.168.17.6”,
“127.0.0.1”] ,
“serverAddress”: [“10.10.10.0/24”,
“127.0.0.1”] }]
}
);
//create scheduler user
db.dropUser("user_scheduler");
db.createUser(
{
"user": "user_scheduler",
"pwd": "ecwise.c1m",
"roles": [
{
"role": "scheduler",
"db": "admin“
“authenticationRestrictions”:
[{“clientSource”: [“192.168.17.6”,
“127.0.0.1”] ,
“serverAddress”: [“10.10.10.0/24”,
“127.0.0.1”] }]
}
]
}
);

24. DBs on separate subnet, not accessible to internet
Amazon VLAN/VPCs
Dedicated OS users for DB and App Services
Localhost Default (3.6)
Use -bind_ip (net.bindIp) to tell MongoDB
what other adapter and sockets to listen to
IP Whitelisting (3.6)
(enhances authentication)
Router
Single Public Access
Shard + Replication set
Shard + Replication set
Shard + Replication set
Configure Server
Replication Set
Application
Mongo DB Cluster
Internal Network behind firewall
Authentication with account & password
Internal Authentication between nodes of cluster
With Key File (or X.509 certification)
VPN Access
Maintenance
Admin user
VPN Authentication
IV. Network/OS considerations
You’re mainly addressing
“Surface Area” risks, i.e.
limiting areas of exposure

25. V. Read Only Views
Addresses both “Surface area reduction” and “weak authorization” risks
Enable administrators to define a query that is materialized at runtime
db.createView(<name>, <collection>, <pipeline>, <options>)
where pipeline is an array that consists of the aggregation pipeline stage
Admins can define permissions on who can access the views
Use these Views in your applications to provide another level of security

26. Read only views
db = db.getSiblingDB('admin');
/* create View */
db.createView(
"scheduler_patient",
"patient",
{
$project:
{
"firstName": 1,
"lastName": 1
}
}
);
db.createView(
"practitioner_patient",
"patient",
{
$project:
{
"nationalID": 0
}
}
);
set13:PRIMARY> db.patient.findone({lastName : “Maddin”})
{ "_id" : ObjectId("5914108c8e034900016a5172"), "nationalID" : "1234-
5678-90", "firstName" : "Joe", "dob" : "1985-08-08", "lastName" :
"Maddin", "phone" : "400-800-1234", "gender" : "MALE" }
set13:PRIMARY> db.scheduler_patient.findone({lastName :
“Maddin”})
{ "_id" : ObjectId("5914108c8e034900016a5172"), "firstName" : "Joe",
"lastName" : "Maddin" }
set13:PRIMARY> db.practitioner_patient.findone({lastName :
“Maddin”})
{ "_id" : ObjectId("5914108c8e034900016a5172"), "firstName" : "Joe",
"dob" : "1985-08-08", "lastName" : "Maddin", "phone" : "400-800-
1234", "gender" : "MALE" }
// everything BUT national ID

27. VI. MongoDB Atlas has (more) Security Baked In
TLS/SSL enabled by default with mongodb+srv connection string
Authentication, and authorization via SCRAM
Network isolation and VPC Peering on AWS
IP whitelists using Authentication Restriction
Encrypted storage volumes
Roles not definable: create users through Atlas UI and assign them to
predefined roles

28. VII. Architecting a secure system
Consider the whole application from the UI/service initiation down to the DB
A layered security strategy will be most effective
Break down organizational barriers – work across teams
Always encrypt network traffic
Decide on authentication model: stand-alone vs. integrated with corporate
Think carefully about Roles
Organizational commitment to devote resources to security is key

29. Slide 29
Thank You
Closing comments/questions?
For follow up:
Tom Spitzer
tspitzer@ecwise.com
@tspitzer_ecwise
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-spitzer-74643/
415-572-4156

30. Appendix
Examples and References
Some additional code examples and web
references are provided

31. MongoDB x.509 authentication settings
{
"db" : "mongodb://localhost:27001/db-name?ssl=true",
"dbOpts": {
"user": "emailAddress=john.doe@example.com,CN=XYZ,OU=XYZ-Client,O=XYZ,L=XYZ,ST=XYZ,C=XYZ",
"auth": { "authMechanism": "MONGODB-X509" },
"server": {
"sslValidate": false,
"sslKey": {"filePath": "/absolute/path/to/db-user.pem"},
"sslCert": {"filePath": "/absolute/path/to/db-user.crt"}
}
}
}

32. self._role_mapping = {'AUTHORIZE': self.get_authorize_db, 'SCHEDULER': self.get_scheduler_db,
'PRACTITIONER': self.get_practitioner_db,
'PHARMACIST': self.get_pharmacist_db,
'AUDITOR': self.get_auditor_db}
def _get_database(self, type):
username = config[type]['username']
password = config[type]['password']
cert_path = config['security']['cert_path']
uri = "mongodb://%s:%s@%s:%s" % (
quote_plus(username), quote_plus(password), self._host, self._port)
return MongoClient(uri, ssl=True, ssl_ca_cert=cert_path)[self._db_name]
def get_database_by_role(self, role):
return self._role_mapping.get(role, None)()
def get_authorize_db(self):
if self._authorize_db is None:
self._authorize_db = self._get_database('mongo_authorize')
return self._authorize_db
Mini Clinic Python SSL connection

33. MongoDB Security References
MongoDB Docs: Use x.509 Certificates to Authenticate Clients
MongoDB Docs: Use x.509 Certificate for Membership Authentication
Blog Post: MongoDB, TLS, and x.509 Authentication Deep Dive
MongoDB Docs: Configure mongod and mongos for TLS/SSL
TLS/SSL Configuration for Clients
Providing Least Privileged Data Access in MongoDB

34. Cyber-Security References
• CyberCriminals and their APT and AVT Techniques
• InfoSec Institute: Anatomy of an APT Attack: Step by Step Approach
• Forrester Wave: Data Loss Prevention Suites Q4, 2016
• Data Guardian’s Definitive Guide to Data Loss Prevention
• How to Avoid Ransomware attacks against MongoDB
• InfoWorld Guide to MongoDB Security
• MongoDB Security Checklist (product documentation)
• Download link for MongoDB Security Reference Architecture