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)
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Requirements
Clearly specify the minimum and maximum expectations for capabilities, and dictate which behaviors are acceptable when resource allocation reaches limits.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Architecture and Design
Ensure that protocols have specific limits of scale placed on them.
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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
1,155 results · Clear filters · Feed
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High 7.5
Vulnerabilities in IBM AIX and PowerVM VIOS
IBM AIX 7.2, and 7.3 and IBM PowerVM VIOS 4.1 could allow a remote attacker to cause a denial of service due to improper validation of an allocation size.
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High 7.5
Vulnerabilities in IBM AIX and PowerVM VIOS
IBM AIX 7.2, and 7.3 and IBM PowerVM VIOS 4.1 could allow a remote attacker to cause a denial of service due to improper validation of an array size field.
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High 7.5
An attacker that can reach a container's published TCP port may be able to force the host's forwarding process to buffe…
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High 8.7
HTTP/2 connection-window starvation pins Plug processes indefinitely in Bandit
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling vulnerability in mtrudel bandit allows an unauthenticated remote attacker to pin an unbounded number of HTTP/2 stream processes indefinitely via connection-level flow control. When a stream's response body …
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High —
netty-incubator-codec-ohttp: BinaryHttpParser should enforce limits for variable lengths fields
We don't enforce any limits for the encoded variable lengths that are used for fields. As the remote peer controls these it's easy for the remote peer to have us buffer data forever and so ultimately OOM.
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High 7.5
Libevent: Unbounded memory accumulation in WebSocket server via fragmented frames
Libevent is an event notification library. From 2.2.0-alpha-dev until 2.2.2-alpha, the libevent WebSocket server in ws.c accumulates fragmented frames in evws->incomplete_frames without enforcing a total message-size limit. An unauthenticated remote client ca…
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High 7.5
jsoup Uncontrolled Resource Consumption in XmlTreeBuilder
jsoup through 1.23.2, fixed in commit 862ba2f, contains an uncontrolled resource consumption vulnerability in XmlTreeBuilder that allows remote attackers to exhaust JVM heap memory by supplying a deeply nested XML document with uniquely-namespaced elements. T…
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High 7.5
Ipa: freeipa: unauthenticated dos in `/ipa/i18n_messages` via unbounded request body read
A flaw was found in FreeIPA. A remote, unauthenticated attacker can exploit a vulnerability in the `/ipa/i18n_messages` endpoint by sending an arbitrarily large request body. This can cause the service to consume excessive memory, leading to memory exhaustion…
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High 7.5
Ipa: freeipa: unauthenticated dos in `/ipa/migration/migration.py` via unbounded request body read
A flaw was found in FreeIPA. A remote, unauthenticated attacker can exploit this vulnerability by sending oversized form POST requests to the `/ipa/migration/migration.py` endpoint. This can force the migration handler to read attacker-controlled request bodi…
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High 8.3
Tempo fee sponsorship in mpp bounds each transaction but not aggregate exposure, allowing concurrent sponsor-wallet drain
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling in ZenHive mpp allows an unauthenticated remote client to drain the fee-payer wallet through concurrent sponsored payments, denying service to legitimate payers once it is empty. MPP.Methods.Tempo.FeePayerP…
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High 8.7
Joomla Extension - cmsjunkie.com - DOS vector in pagination parameter handling in J-BusinessDirectory < 6.2.3
Joomla Extension - cmsjunkie.com - DOS vector in pagination parameter handling in J-BusinessDirectory < 6.2.3 - Pagination values were not strictly typed. Array/non-numeric values (for example limitstart[]) could trigger PHP type errors in arithmetic, and lim…
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High 7.5CVE-2026-50142 Public exploit
libheif: unbounded heap allocation in HEIF sequence parser (stsz fixed-size mode missing bound check)
libheif is a HEIF and AVIF file format decoder and encoder. From 1.19.0 until 1.23.0, a crafted HEIF sequence accepted by heif_context_read_from_memory() with the msf1 sequence brand can cause unbounded heap allocation. In libheif/sequences/seq_boxes.cc, Box_…
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High 7.5
NVIDIA Triton Inference Server for Linux contains a vulnerability where an attacker could cause an allocation of resour…
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High 7.5
WordPress Starter Templates by Kadence WP plugin <= 2.3.3 - Denial of Service Attack vulnerability
Unauthenticated Denial of Service Attack in Starter Templates by Kadence WP <= 2.3.3 versions.
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High 8.7
vm2: bufferAllocLimit cap bypassed by Buffer.concat and Buffer.from arrayLike
vm2 is an open source vm/sandbox for Node.js. Prior to 3.11.6, the bufferAllocLimit enforcement in lib/setup-sandbox.js does not cover Buffer.concat(list, totalLength) or Buffer.from(arrayLike) with an attacker-controlled length, allowing sandbox code to perf…
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High 7.1
In JetBrains YouTrack before 2026.1.13901, 2026.2.17950 doS attack was possible via crafted type parameters
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High 7.5
New API: Unauthenticated payment webhooks allow memory and disk DoS via unbounded body reads and full-body logging
New API is a large language mode (LLM) gateway and artificial intelligence (AI) asset management system. Prior to 1.0.0-rc.11, POST /api/stripe/webhook, POST /api/creem/webhook, and POST /api/waffo/webhook read and log full request bodies before signature val…
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High 7.5
Scriban before 7.0.0 Denial of Service via string.pad_left/pad_right
Scriban before 7.0.0 (affected versions <= 6.6.0) contains an uncontrolled memory allocation vulnerability in the string.pad_left and string.pad_right template functions, which perform no validation on the width parameter before delegating to .NET's String.Pa…
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High 8.7
Scriban before 7.2.0 Denial of Service via array.insert_at
Scriban before 7.2.0 contains a denial of service vulnerability in the array.insert_at function that allocates unbounded null entries without respecting LoopLimit or LimitToString constraints. Attackers can supply a large index parameter to trigger OutOfMemor…
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High 7.5
Scriban 3.0.0 through 7.2.0 Denial of Service via Array Multiplication
Scriban versions 3.0.0 through 7.2.0 contain a denial of service vulnerability in the array multiplication operator that allocates memory without enforcing LoopLimit or overflow-safe arithmetic checks. Attackers can supply a large integer multiplier in a temp…
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High 7.5
Scriban 3.0.0 through 7.2.5 Denial of Service via ScriptRange.Multiply
Scriban versions from 3.0.0 through 7.2.5 contain a denial of service vulnerability in the ScriptRange.Multiply operator that bypasses LoopLimit when the left operand is a lazy sequence. Attackers can supply templates with array multiplication on lazy sequenc…
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High 7.5
@fastify/multipart vulnerable to Denial of Service via temporary file leak on aborted upload
@fastify/multipart is a multipart form-data parser for Fastify. In versions from 3.0.0 up to but not including 10.1.1, request.saveRequestFiles() can leave completed temporary files on disk when a client disconnects while the parser is advancing between multi…
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High 7.5
Apache Struts: Unbounded growth of localized-text caches driven by the request locale
Allocation of resources without limits or throttling vulnerability in Apache Struts. When no fixed locale is configured, the locale used for localized-text lookups is taken from the incoming request, allowing an unauthenticated remote client to cause the fram…
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High 7.5
Apply ReadHeaderTimeout when doing unencrypted HTTP/2 check in net/http
When a server is configured to support unencrypted HTTP/2, it reads a few bytes from each new connection to see if they contain the HTTP/2 client preface. ReadHeaderTimeout is unexpectedly not being applied when doing this.
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High 7.5
Limit handshake messages we are willing to accept post-handshake in crypto/tls
Handshake messages, such as KeyUpdate, are always considered as state-advancing, regardless of whether a handshake has been completed or not. As a result, a malicious client can keep sending KeyUpdate messages to force the server to keep performing key deriva…
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High 7.5
Add recursion depth guard during decode in encoding/xml
Previously, DecodeElement would reset the depth counter causing it to never fire; this could lead to stack exhaustion.
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High 7.5
IBM i is Affected By Multiple Vulnerabilities in Host Servers
IBM i 7.6, 7.5, 7.4, and 7.3 could allow a remote attacker to cause a denial of service due to unbounded resource allocation.
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High 7.5
rsync 3.4.2 < 3.5.0 DoS via --zt Zstandard Compression Thread Exhaustion
rsync 3.4.2 before 3.5.0 contains a denial of service vulnerability that allows a remote sender to exhaust system resources by specifying the --zt short alias for --compress-threads, which bypasses the refuse options directive's string matching on long option…
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High 7.5
rsync 2.0.0 < 3.5.0 Connection Slot Exhaustion DoS via Handshake Stall
rsync daemon 2.0.0 before 3.5.0 contains a denial of service vulnerability that allows unauthenticated remote attackers to exhaust daemon connection slots by stalling the handshake process before or after module selection without triggering the I/O timeout. A…
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High 7.5
Unbounded Memory Growth in QUIC Server Incoming Channel Queue
Issue summary: When an OpenSSL QUIC server (Listener SSL object) processes valid QUIC Initial packets for unknown destination connection IDs, it can allocate and queue new incoming channels without enforcing any limit. Impact summary: A remote peer that can m…
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High 7.5
Rekor has an OOM Condition due to Unbounded gzip Decompression in Alpine APK Parsing Logic
Rekor is a software supply chain transparency log. Starting in version 0.3.0 and prior to version 1.5.2, the `Package.Unmarshal()` function in `pkg/types/alpine/apk.go` decompresses the signature and control gzip members of an APK file into in-memory buffers …
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High 7.5
Acm-search-v2-api-rhel9: search-v2-api: unbounded tokenreviews cache allows unauthenticated memory-exhaustion dos
A flaw was found in search-v2-api. An unauthenticated attacker can exploit this by sending requests with unique random bearer tokens. Each unique token creates a permanent entry in the unbounded tokenReviews cache, which is not properly cleared. This can lead…
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High 8.7
etcd: `tlsListener.acceptLoop` spawns unbounded handshake goroutines with no deadline
etcd is a distributed key-value store for the data of a distributed system. Prior to versions 3.5.33, 3.6.14, and 3.7.1, a network attacker who can reach an etcd TLS listener can open many TCP connections and never send a ClientHello. In client/pkg/transport/…
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High 7.5
http4s-blaze-server: Unbounded WebSocket message aggregation
Http4s (http4s-blaze-server) is a minimal, idiomatic Scala interface for HTTP services. Prior to 0.23.18 and 1.0.0-M42, http4s-blaze-server aggregates fragments of an incoming WebSocket message with no limit on total size or fragment count. A client that comp…
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High 8.5
Storage volume cross-project move and snapshot restore bypass project disk limits
An authorization bypass vulnerability in LXD allows an authenticated user to bypass project-level disk and volume limits. Two related code paths fail to verify resource limits during volume operations: the storagePoolVolumeTypePostMove function omits the limi…
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High 7.5
IBM i is Affected By Multiple Vulnerabilities in the Debug Server
IBM i 7.6, 7.5, 7.4, and 7.3 could allow a remote attacker to cause a denial of service due to improper validation of input size.
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High 7.5
Unauthenticated Denial of Service
An unauthenticated denial-of-service vulnerability in the device's PLCnext Engineer communication interface allow an remote attacker to interrupt access via the client application. Successful exploitation prevents communication until the PLCnext service is ma…
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High 7.5
python-socketio: Binary attachment accumulation can cause denial of service
python-socketio is a Python implementation of the Socket.IO realtime client and server. The python-socketio server stores binary `EVENT` and `ACK` messages in memory while it waits to receive their binary attachments. Once all the attachments are received, th…
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High 7.5
python-engineio has unbound thread allocation that can cause denial of service
python-engineio is a Python implementation of the Engine.IO realtime client and server. Prior to version 4.13.2, an attacker can cause the creation of unnecessary background threads in the python-engineio server by exploiting the heartbeat mechanism, which la…
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High 7.5
python-engineio has possible denial of service due to maximum payload size sometimes not being enforced
python-engineio is a Python implementation of the Engine.IO realtime client and server. Versions prior to 4.13.2 have two specific configurations of the python-engineio server in which the size of incoming messages is not checked before the messages are loade…