Weakness (CWE)
CWE-770: Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling
The product allocates a reusable resource or group of resources on behalf of an actor without imposing any intended restrictions on the size or number of resources that can be allocated.
How to prevent it (8 mitigations)
-
Requirements
Clearly specify the minimum and maximum expectations for capabilities, and dictate which behaviors are acceptable when resource allocation reaches limits.
-
Architecture and Design
Limit the amount of resources that are accessible to unprivileged users. Set per-user limits for resources. Allow the system administrator to define these limits. Be careful to avoid CWE-410.
-
Architecture and Design
Design throttling mechanisms into the system architecture. The best protection is to limit the amount of resources that an unauthorized user can cause to be expended. A strong authentication and access control model will help prevent such attacks from occurring in the first place, and it will help the administrator to identify who is committing the abuse. The login application should be protected against DoS attacks as much as possible. Limiting the database access, perhaps by caching result sets, can help minimize the resources expended. To further limit the potential for a DoS attack, consider tracking the rate of requests received from users and blocking requests that exceed a defined rate threshold.
-
Implementation
Assume all input is malicious. Use an "accept known good" input validation strategy, i.e., use a list of acceptable inputs that strictly conform to specifications. Reject any input that does not strictly conform to specifications, or transform it into something that does.
When performing input validation, consider all potentially relevant properties, including length, type of input, the full range of acceptable values, missing or extra inputs, syntax, consistency across related fields, and conformance to business rules. As an example of business rule logic, "boat" may be syntactically valid because it only contains alphanumeric characters, but it is not valid if the input is only expected to contain colors such as "red" or "blue."
Do not rely exclusively on looking for malicious or malformed inputs. This is likely to miss at least one undesirable input, especially if the code's environment changes. This can give attackers enough room to bypass the intended validation. However, denylists can be useful for detecting potential attacks or determining which inputs are so malformed that they should be rejected outright.
-
Architecture and Design
For any security checks that are performed on the client side, ensure that these checks are duplicated on the server side, in order to avoid CWE-602. Attackers can bypass the client-side checks by modifying values after the checks have been performed, or by changing the client to remove the client-side checks entirely. Then, these modified values would be submitted to the server.
-
Architecture and Design
Mitigation of resource exhaustion attacks requires that the target system either:
- recognizes the attack and denies that user further access for a given amount of time, typically by using increasing time delays
- uniformly throttles all requests in order to make it more difficult to consume resources more quickly than they can again be freed.
The first of these solutions is an issue in itself though, since it may allow attackers to prevent the use of the system by a particular valid user. If the attacker impersonates the valid user, they may be able to prevent the user from accessing the server in question.
The second solution can be difficult to effectively institute -- and even when properly done, it does not provide a full solution. It simply requires more resources on the part of the attacker.
-
Architecture and Design
Ensure that protocols have specific limits of scale placed on them.
-
Architecture and Design, Implementation
If the program must fail, ensure that it fails gracefully (fails closed). There may be a temptation to simply let the program fail poorly in cases such as low memory conditions, but an attacker may be able to assert control before the software has fully exited. Alternately, an uncontrolled failure could cause cascading problems with other downstream components; for example, the program could send a signal to a downstream process so the process immediately knows that a problem has occurred and has a better chance of recovery.
Ensure that all failures in resource allocation place the system into a safe posture.
Source: MITRE CWE-770
1,166 results · Clear filters · Feed
-
High 7.1
SSH_FXP_OPENDIR may Lead to Exhaustion of File Handles
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling vulnerability in Erlang OTP ssh (ssh_sftp modules) allows Excessive Allocation, Flooding. This vulnerability is associated with program files lib/ssh/src/ssh_sftpd.erl. This issue affects OTP from OTP 17.0 …
-
High 7.1
Stalwart vulnerable to Memory Exhaustion via CalDAV Event Expansion
Stalwart is a mail and collaboration server. Starting in version 0.12.0 and prior to version 0.13.3, a memory exhaustion vulnerability exists in Stalwart's CalDAV implementation that allows authenticated attackers to cause denial-of-service by triggering unbo…
-
High 7.5
Denial of Service (DoS) vulnerability in mikecao/flight
The mikecao/flight PHP framework in versions prior to v1.2 is vulnerable to Denial of Service (DoS) attacks due to eager loading of request bodies in the Request class constructor. The framework automatically reads the entire request body on every HTTP reques…
-
High 7.5
Adacore Ada Web Server (AWS) before 25.2 is vulnerable to a denial-of-service (DoS) condition due to improper handling …
-
High 7.5CVE-2025-9784 Public exploit
Undertow: undertow madeyoureset http/2 ddos vulnerability
A flaw was found in Undertow where malformed client requests can trigger server-side stream resets without triggering abuse counters. This issue, referred to as the "MadeYouReset" attack, allows malicious clients to induce excessive server workload by repeate…
-
High 8.2
Rancher affected by unauthenticated Denial of Service
A vulnerability has been identified within Rancher Manager in which it did not enforce request body size limits on certain public (unauthenticated) and authenticated API endpoints. This allows a malicious user to exploit this by sending excessively large payl…
-
High 7.1
Qsync Central
An allocation of resources without limits or throttling vulnerability has been reported to affect Qsync Central. If a remote attacker gains a user account, they can then exploit the vulnerability to prevent other systems, applications, or processes from acces…
-
High 7.1
Qsync Central
An allocation of resources without limits or throttling vulnerability has been reported to affect Qsync Central. If a remote attacker gains a user account, they can then exploit the vulnerability to prevent other systems, applications, or processes from acces…
-
High 7.1
File Station 5
An allocation of resources without limits or throttling vulnerability has been reported to affect File Station 5. If a remote attacker gains a user account, they can then exploit the vulnerability to prevent other systems, applications, or processes from acce…
-
High 7.1
File Station 5
An allocation of resources without limits or throttling vulnerability has been reported to affect File Station 5. If a remote attacker gains a user account, they can then exploit the vulnerability to prevent other systems, applications, or processes from acce…
-
High 7.1
File Station 5
An allocation of resources without limits or throttling vulnerability has been reported to affect File Station 5. If a remote attacker gains a user account, they can then exploit the vulnerability to prevent other systems, applications, or processes from acce…
-
High 7.5
Vault unauthenticated denial of service through complex json payload
A malicious user may submit a specially-crafted complex payload that otherwise meets the default request size limit which results in excessive memory and CPU consumption of Vault. This may lead to a timeout in Vault’s auditing subroutine, potentially resultin…
-
High 8.7
jsPDF Parsing of Corrupt PNGs Leads to Potential Denial of Service (DoS)
jsPDF is a library to generate PDFs in JavaScript. Prior to 3.0.2, user control of the first argument of the addImage method results in CPU utilization and denial of service. If given the possibility to pass unsanitized image data or URLs to the addImage meth…
-
High 7.7
MadeYouReset HTTP/2 vulnerability
In Eclipse Jetty, versions <=9.4.57, <=10.0.25, <=11.0.25, <=12.0.21, <=12.1.0.alpha2, an HTTP/2 client may trigger the server to send RST_STREAM frames, for example by sending frames that are malformed or that should not be sent in a particular stream state,…
-
High 8.2CVE-2025-55163 Public exploit
Netty MadeYouReset HTTP/2 DDoS Vulnerability
Netty is an asynchronous, event-driven network application framework. Prior to versions 4.1.124.Final and 4.2.4.Final, Netty is vulnerable to MadeYouReset DDoS. This is a logical vulnerability in the HTTP/2 protocol, that uses malformed HTTP/2 control frames …
-
High 7.5
Denial of service via malicious preflight requests in github.com/rs/cors
Middleware causes a prohibitive amount of heap allocations when processing malicious preflight requests that include a Access-Control-Request-Headers (ACRH) header whose value contains many commas. This behavior can be abused by attackers to produce undue loa…
-
High 8.7
Vision UI security-kit.js: Potential Uncontrolled Resource Allocation Vulnerability
Vision UI is a collection of enterprise-grade, dependency-free modules for modern web projects. In versions 1.4.0 and below, the generateSecureId and getSecureRandomInt functions in security-kit versions prior to 3.5.0 (packaged in Vision UI 1.4.0 and below) …
-
High 7.5
HTTP Service DoS Vulnerability
An unauthenticated remote attacker can cause a Denial of Service by sending a large number of requests to the http service on port 80.
-
High 7.5
Suricata's mishandling of data on HTTP2 stream 0 can lead to resource starvation
Suricata is a network IDS, IPS and NSM engine developed by the OISF (Open Information Security Foundation) and the Suricata community. In versions 7.0.10 and below and 8.0.0-beta1 through 8.0.0-rc1, mishandling of data on HTTP2 stream 0 can lead to uncontroll…
-
High 7.5
In Netgear RAX30 V1.0.10.94_3, the USERLIMIT_GLOBAL option is set to 0 in multiple bftpd-related configuration files. T…
-
High 7.5
cpp-httplib Unbounded Memory Allocation in Chunked/No-Length Requests Vulnerability
cpp-httplib is a C++11 single-file header-only cross platform HTTP/HTTPS library. Prior to 0.23.0, incoming requests using Transfer-Encoding: chunked in the header can allocate memory arbitrarily in the server, potentially leading to its exhaustion. This vuln…
-
High 8.7
Chall-Manager's HTTP Gateway have no header check timeout leading to potential slow loris attacks
Chall-Manager is a platform-agnostic system able to start Challenges on Demand of a player. The HTTP Gateway processes headers, but with no timeout set. With a slow loris attack, an attacker could cause Denial of Service (DoS). Exploitation does not require a…
-
High 8.7
WeGIA allows Uncontrolled Resource Consumption via the fid parameter
WeGIA is a web manager for charitable institutions. The Wegia server has a vulnerability that allows excessively long HTTP GET requests to a specific URL. This issue arises from the lack of validation for the length of the fid parameter. Tests confirmed that …
-
High 8.7
WeGIA allows Uncontrolled Resource Consumption via the errorstr parameter
WeGIA is a web manager for charitable institutions. The Wegia server has a vulnerability that allows excessively long HTTP GET requests to a specific URL. This issue arises from the lack of validation for the length of the errorstr parameter. Tests confirmed …
-
High 7.5
Redis DoS Vulnerability due to bad connection error handling
Redis is an open source, in-memory database that persists on disk. An unauthenticated connection can cause repeated IP protocol errors, leading to client starvation and, ultimately, a denial of service. This vulnerability is fixed in 8.0.3, 7.4.5, 7.2.10, and…
-
High 7.5
A denial-of-service vulnerability due to improper prioritization of network traffic over protection mechanism exists in…
-
High 8.8
NeKernal Multiple Memory Corruption Vulnerabilities in mkfs.hefs
NeKernal is a free and open-source operating system stack. Prior to version 0.0.3, there are several memory safety issues that can lead to memory corruption, disk image corruption, denial of service, and potential code execution. These issues stem from unchec…
-
High 7.5
IBM InfoSphere Information Server denial of service
IBM InfoSphere Information Server 11.7.0.0 through 11.7.1.6 could allow a remote attacker to cause a denial of service due to insufficient validation of incoming request resources.
-
High 7.5
Incorrect congestion window growth by invalid ACK ranges
Impact Cloudflare quiche was discovered to be vulnerable to incorrect congestion window growth, which could cause it to send data at a rate faster than the path might actually support. An unauthenticated remote attacker can exploit the vulnerability by first …
-
High 7.5
Apache Commons FileUpload, Apache Commons FileUpload: FileUpload DoS via part headers
Allocation of resources for multipart headers with insufficient limits enabled a DoS vulnerability in Apache Commons FileUpload. This issue affects Apache Commons FileUpload: from 1.0 before 1.6; from 2.0.0-M1 before 2.0.0-M4. Users are recommended to upgrade…
-
High 7.5
Apache Tomcat: FileUpload large number of parts with headers DoS
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling vulnerability in Apache Tomcat. This issue affects Apache Tomcat: from 11.0.0-M1 through 11.0.7, from 10.1.0-M1 through 10.1.41, from 9.0.0.M1 through 9.0.105. The following versions were EOL at the time th…
-
High 7.5
IBM Cognos Analytics denial of service
IBM Cognos Analytics 11.2.0, 11.2.1, 11.2.2, 11.2.3, 11.2.4, 12.0.0, 12.0.1, 12.0.2, 12.0.3, and 12.0.4 could allow an authenticated user to cause a denial of service by sending a specially crafted request that would exhaust memory resources.
-
High 7.5
Pion Interceptor's improper RTP padding handling allows remote crash for SFU users (DoS)
Pion Interceptor is a framework for building RTP/RTCP communication software. Versions v0.1.36 through v0.1.38 contain a bug in a RTP packet factory that can be exploited to trigger a panic with Pion based SFU via crafted RTP packets, This only affect users t…
-
High 8.7
Discourse vulnerable to DoS via large URL payload in PM to a bot
Discourse is an open-source discussion platform. Prior to version 3.4.4 of the `stable` branch, version 3.5.0.beta5 of the `beta` branch, and version 3.5.0.beta6-dev of the `tests-passed` branch, sending a malicious URL in a PM to a bot user can cause a reduc…
-
High 7.5
CoreDNS Vulnerable to DoQ Memory Exhaustion via Stream Amplification
CoreDNS is a DNS server that chains plugins. In versions prior to 1.12.2, a Denial of Service (DoS) vulnerability exists in the CoreDNS DNS-over-QUIC (DoQ) server implementation. The server previously created a new goroutine for every incoming QUIC stream wit…
-
High 7.1
File Station 5
An allocation of resources without limits or throttling vulnerability has been reported to affect File Station 5. If a remote attacker gains a user account, they can then exploit the vulnerability to prevent other systems, applications, or processes from acce…
-
High 7.1
File Station 5
An allocation of resources without limits or throttling vulnerability has been reported to affect File Station 5. If a remote attacker gains a user account, they can then exploit the vulnerability to prevent other systems, applications, or processes from acce…
-
High 7.5
PHOENIX CONTACT: ILC 1x1 ETH Denial of Service
An unauthenticated remote attacker may use an uncontrolled resource consumption in the IEC 61131 program of the affected products by creating large amounts of network traffic that needs to be handled by the ILC. This results in a Denial-of-Service of the devi…
-
High 8.7
File Descriptor Exhaustion in sslh-select and sslh-ev triggers SEGFAULT
A Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling vulnerability in sslh allows attackers to easily exhaust the file descriptors in sslh and deny legitimate users service.This issue affects sslh before 2.2.4.
-
High 7.5
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling in GitLab
An issue has been discovered in GitLab CE/EE affecting all versions before 17.10.7, 17.11 before 17.11.3, and 18.0 before 18.0.1. This could allow an authenticated attacker to cause a denial of service condition by exhausting server resources.