Under its default configuration, Cassandra binds an unauthenticated
JMX/RMI interface to all network interfaces. As RMI is an API for the
transport and remote execution of serialized Java, anyone with access
to this interface can execute arbitrary code as the running user.
Mitigation:
1.2.x has reached EOL, so users of <= 1.2.x are recommended to upgrade
to a supported version of Cassandra, or manually configure encryption
and authentication of JMX,
(see https://wiki.apache.org/cassandra/JmxSecurity).
2.0.x users should upgrade to 2.0.14
2.1.x users should upgrade to 2.1.4
Alternately, users of any version not wishing to upgrade can
reconfigure JMX/RMI to enable encryption and authentication according
to https://wiki.apache.org/cassandra/JmxSecurityor
http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/technotes/guides/management/agent.html
Credit:
This issue was discovered by Georgi Geshev of MWR InfoSecurity