Port 9042: Cassandra
Open Cassandra port detected on a publicly accessible host.
Severity: Critical | Port: 9042
What is Cassandra?
Apache Cassandra is a distributed NoSQL database designed for handling large amounts of data across many servers. It is used by organizations that need high availability and horizontal scalability — common in IoT, messaging, and time-series data applications. Port 9042 is the CQL (Cassandra Query Language) native transport port.
Why this is a problem
Cassandra does not enable authentication by default. An exposed port 9042 allows anyone to connect and run CQL queries — reading, modifying, or deleting data across the entire cluster. Even with authentication enabled, exposing the port increases the attack surface for brute-force attempts and exploitation of known vulnerabilities.
What you should do
- Block port 9042 from the internet
- Enable authentication and authorization in
cassandra.yaml - Bind Cassandra to private network interfaces only
- Use SSL/TLS for client-to-node and node-to-node communication
- If remote access is needed, use a VPN or SSH tunnel