Description

An issue in MongoDB Server's geospatial query processing could allow an authenticated user with write privileges to cause certain malformed geometry data to be stored and later processed without proper validation. Subsequent queries against this data could then result in the server accessing memory outside its intended bounds. This could result in a server crash (denial of service) and may expose a limited amount of server process memory.

Executive Summary

Technical Details

Mitigations

References

Additional Metadata

{
  "score": "7.1",
  "pubDate": "2026-08-11T19:17:23.580Z",
  "pubdate": "2026-08-11T19:17:23.580Z",
  "executiveSummary": "An out-of-bounds memory access vulnerability has been identified within MongoDB Server's geospatial query processing component.\nThe vulnerability allows an authenticated attacker with write privileges to successfully store malformed geometry data that bypasses initial validation checks.\nWhen subsequent geospatial queries are executed against this malicious or malformed data, the database server attempts to process it, resulting in improper memory access.\nThe primary operational impact includes a potential server crash leading to a denial of service, alongside the risk of exposing a limited amount of sensitive server process memory to the querying client.\nExploitation requires authenticated access with specific write privileges to insert the malformed geometry payload, meaning unauthenticated network entities cannot directly trigger the vulnerability.\nRisk implications are moderate to high depending on the deployment architecture, as repeated crashes impact database availability and memory leakage could potentially expose sensitive runtime artifacts.",
  "technicalDetails": "The root cause of the vulnerability stems from insufficient input validation and sanitization during the initial persistence phase of geospatial geometry data within MongoDB Server.\nAn authenticated user possessing write privileges can bypass validation constraints and insert specially crafted or malformed geometry objects into the database storage engine.\nThe vulnerable component resides in the geospatial query processing subsystem, which is responsible for indexing, parsing, and evaluating spatial relationships.\nThe attack flow proceeds in two distinct phases: first, the adversary leverages write privileges to inject the malformed geometry payload into a targeted collection.\nSecond, the adversary or another process triggers a subsequent geospatial query that evaluates the previously stored malformed data.\nDuring this evaluation phase, the parsing and processing engine fails to adequately verify boundary conditions or data lengths, leading to an out-of-bounds read condition when accessing memory structures.\nThe payload behavior involves forcing the geometry processing engine to read past the allocated buffer boundaries.\nThis out-of-bounds access destabilizes the server process, causing an immediate crash and subsequent denial of service.\nAdditionally, depending on the memory layout and proximity of sensitive data adjacent to the read buffer, the operation may inadvertently return fragments of server process memory in error messages or query responses.\nPrerequisites for this attack include valid authentication credentials and write-level authorization on the database instance, limiting remote exploitation vectors to authenticated internal users or compromised accounts."
}