CVE-2026-47846: Bitnami Cassandra container images are affected by a retained default superuser vulnerability

Synopsis

A retained default superuser vulnerability affects Bitnami Cassandra container images across the 4.0.x, 4.1.x, and 5.0.x release lines. The flaw is reachable over the network with no authentication required: when a custom administrator account is configured via the CASSANDRA_USER environment variable, the initialization script fails to remove the built-in cassandra:cassandra superuser account, leaving it active as an unintended login path. An attacker who reaches the Cassandra port can authenticate using the well-known default credentials and gain full superuser access to the cluster, enabling complete data disclosure, data modification, and service disruption. Patched-image rebuilds at versions 4.0.20-photon-5-r7, 4.1.11-photon-5-r7, and 5.0.8-photon-5-r4 are available on HarborGuard for affected environments.

HarborGuard Coverage

Exploit Conditions

• Network reachabilityRequired

  The attacker must be able to reach the Cassandra service over the network; any host with TCP access to the Cassandra native transport port (default 9042) is a viable attack origin.

• AuthenticationNot required

  No credentials are needed beyond the publicly known default cassandra:cassandra superuser pair, which is effectively equivalent to no authentication barrier given the credentials are universally known.

• Victim interactionNot required

  Exploitation is fully attacker-driven and requires no action from any user or administrator of the affected system.

• Attack complexityDetail

  The exploit is reliable and condition-free: the default account is persistently present due to the initialization script defect, so no race condition, memory layout dependency, or environmental preparation is required.

Blast Radius

• Reads all keyspaces, tables, and stored data in the Cassandra cluster, including any application records, session data, or secrets persisted there.
• Modifies or deletes any data in the cluster by exercising full superuser write privileges via the retained cassandra account.
• Creates or drops user accounts and alters cluster-wide security settings, potentially locking out legitimate administrators.
• Disrupts cluster availability by issuing destructive schema operations or resource-exhausting queries with superuser authority.