CVE-2026-120803MongoDB Server use after free
CVE-2026-120803 is a use after free in MongoDB Server, rated high (7.1 on CVSS 4.0).
Why this priority: High severity, with no exploitation signal yet.
Published · Updated · NVD status: Awaiting Analysis
What it is
Code keeps using memory after releasing it, so an attacker who refills that memory can steer execution.
How it is reached
An attacker can exploit it over the network, with an ordinary user account, and nobody has to click anything.
What an attacker gains
A successful attack can take it offline. In practice, this kind of flaw lets an attacker crash the process, read memory, or in the worst case run code.
Is it being exploited?
There is no public report of exploitation yet.
What to do
- Upgrade MongoDB Server to a fixed version for your release line (9.0.7, 8.3.16).
- Until it is patched, review who holds accounts that can reach it.
Description from NVD
A use-after-free issue exists in MongoDB’s SBE (Slot-Based Execution) implementation of a window function accumulator used by certain $setWindowFields aggregation pipelines. Under specific conditions, the accumulator can retain a dangling pointer to memory that has since been freed. When this stale pointer is later dereferenced during serialization of the carried-forward value, it can result in a heap out-of-bounds read that may expose adjacent heap contents and crash the mongod server. An authenticated user with readWrite privileges on a database can trigger this issue by crafting a specific aggregation pipeline.
What this means for your architecture.
A CVE names a product. Whether it matters depends on where that product sits in your systems: what reaches it, which trust boundary it guards and what it can reach once compromised. Veriom maps your components, their relationships and your trust boundaries from your code, cloud and delivery evidence, so you can see where a component like this sits. The radar itself does not look at your systems.
Components it touches
- Native code: operating systems, browsers and firmware. The flaw sits wherever native code reads untrusted data.
- Network appliances and media or file parsers. The flaw sits wherever native code reads untrusted data.
Trust boundaries in play
- Authenticated network access. An account is needed, so exposure follows who can sign in: customers, partners or staff.
- Wherever native code reads untrusted data. An attacker who crosses it can crash the process, read memory, or in the worst case run code.
Questions to answer about your own systems
- Where does MongoDB Server run in your systems, and at which version?
- Which of those instances can be reached from the internet or partner networks?
- What can it reach once compromised: which data stores, secrets and services?
Sources
- CVE records and CVSS scores from the NVD CVE API. This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD.
- Exploitation status from CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog.
- Exploit likelihood from FIRST’s Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS), refreshed daily.
- Explanations are written by Veriom from fixed templates over each record’s data, not by a person reviewing each CVE. Descriptions are quoted from the records as published.