Runbook #7 – Default Users, System_auth,Replication Strategy,and Schema Mismatch

Cassandra, a fault-tolerant database management system, provides a default role called “cassandra” with superuser privileges and full access to the database. While this role is used to log in to Cassandra for the first time, it is highly recommended to create a new custom superuser and disable the default “cassandra” role immediately as it represents a major security vulnerability. Failure to do so can lead to bad actors accessing the system. Additionally, there are no symptoms associated with this vulnerability. Cassandra supports multiple replication strategies, and the recommended replication strategy for production clusters is NetworkTopologyStrategy, which allows control over data replication across multiple DCs and racks to avoid single points of failures.

Excerpted from the text – “Cassandra provides a default role with its username as “cassandra“ and password as “cassandra“. This role has superuser privileges and full access to the database. You will use these credentials to log in to Cassandra for the first time but it is strongly recommended that you create a new custom superuser and disable the “cassandra“ superuser role immediately. Failing to do so represents a major security vulnerability as it is typically the first combination of credentials a bad actor will use.”