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
1,167 results · Clear filters · Feed
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Medium 6.5
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling in GitLab
An issue has been discovered in GitLab CE/EE affecting all versions from 8.15 before 18.1.5, 18.2 before 18.2.5, and 18.3 before 18.3.1 that could have could have allowed an authenticated user to cause a Denial of Service (DoS) condition by submitting URLs th…
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Medium 5.3
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling in GitLab
An issue has been discovered in GitLab CE/EE affecting all versions from 14.1 before 18.1.5, 18.2 before 18.2.5, and 18.3 before 18.3.1 that that under certain conditions could have allowed an unauthenticated attacker to cause a denial-of-service condition af…
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Medium 5.3
Liferay Portal users can upload an unlimited amount of files
Liferay Portal 7.4.0 through 7.4.3.132, and Liferay DXP 2025.Q1.0 through 2025.Q1.1, 2024.Q4.0 through 2024.Q4.7, 2024.Q3.1 through 2024.Q3.13, 2024.Q2.0 through 2024.Q2.13, 2024.Q1.1 through 2024.Q1.14 and 7.4 GA through update 92 allow users to upload an un…
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Medium 5.3
Liferay Portal's Unlimited File Upload Could Result in DoS
Liferay Portal 7.4.0 through 7.4.3.132, and Liferay DXP 2025.Q1.0 through 2025.Q1.4, 2024.Q4.0 through 2024.Q4.7, 2024.Q3.1 through 2024.Q3.13, 2024.Q2.0 through 2024.Q2.13, 2024.Q1.1 through 2024.Q1.15 and 7.4 GA through update 92 allow users to upload an un…
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Medium 5.7
Cri-o: large /etc/passwd file may lead to denial of service
There's a vulnerability in the CRI-O application where when container is launched with securityContext.runAsUser specifying a non-existent user, CRI-O attempts to create the user, reading the container's entire /etc/passwd file into memory. If this file is ex…
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Medium 5.3
IBM WebSphere Application Server Liberty denial of service
IBM WebSphere Application Server Liberty 18.0.0.2 through 25.0.0.8 is vulnerable to a denial of service, caused by sending a specially-crafted request. A remote attacker could exploit this vulnerability to cause the server to consume memory resources.
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Medium 6.5
Helm Charts with Specific JSON Schema Values Can Cause Memory Exhaustion
Helm is a package manager for Charts for Kubernetes. Prior to version 3.18.5, it is possible to craft a JSON Schema file in a manner which could cause Helm to use all available memory and have an out of memory (OOM) termination. This issue has been resolved i…
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Medium 6.6
pypdf's Manipulated FlateDecode streams can exhaust RAM
pypdf is a free and open-source pure-python PDF library. Prior to version 6.0.0, an attacker can craft a PDF which leads to the RAM being exhausted. This requires just reading the file if a series of FlateDecode filters is used on a malicious cross-reference …
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Medium 6.5
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling in GitLab
An issue has been discovered in GitLab CE/EE affecting all versions from 8.14 before 18.0.6, 18.1 before 18.1.4, and 18.2 before 18.2.2 that could have allowed an unauthenticated user to create a denial of service condition by sending specially crafted payloa…
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Medium 6.5
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling in GitLab
An issue has been discovered in GitLab CE/EE affecting all versions from 11.6 before 18.0.6, 18.1 before 18.1.4, and 18.2 before 18.2.2 that could have allowed an authenticated user to cause a denial of service condition by creating specially crafted content …
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Medium 5.3
HTTP/2 Vulnerability
An HTTP/2 implementation flaw allows a denial-of-service (DoS) that uses malformed HTTP/2 control frames in order to break the max concurrent streams limit (HTTP/2 MadeYouReset Attack). Note: Software versions which have reached End of Technical Support (EoT…
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Medium 6.3
Possible DOS in processing large name constraint structures in PKIXCertPathReveiwer
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling vulnerability in Legion of the Bouncy Castle Inc. BC Java bcpkix on All (API modules), Legion of the Bouncy Castle Inc. BC Java bcprov on All (API modules), Legion of the Bouncy Castle Inc. BCPKIX FIPS bcpk…
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Medium 6.5
DirectX Graphics Kernel Denial of Service Vulnerability
Allocation of resources without limits or throttling in Windows DirectX allows an authorized attacker to deny service over a network.
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Medium 6.9
Liferay Portal and Liferay DXP have a Denial Of Service via File Upload (DOS) vulnerability
A Denial Of Service via File Upload (DOS) vulnerability in the Liferay Portal 7.4.3.0 through 7.4.3.132, and Liferay DXP 2025.Q1.0 through 2025.Q1.8, 2024.Q4.0 through 2024.Q4.7, 2024.Q3.0 through 2024.Q3.13, 2024.Q2.0 through 2024.Q2.13, 2024.Q1.1 through 20…
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Medium 6.3
Possible DOS in processing specially formed ASN.1 Object Identifiers
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling vulnerability in Legion of the Bouncy Castle Inc. BC Java bcprov on All (API modules), Legion of the Bouncy Castle Inc. BC-FJA bc-fips on All allows Excessive Allocation. This vulnerability is associated wi…
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Medium 5.3
Mastodon e‑mail throttle misconfiguration allows unlimited email confirmations against unconfirmed emails
Mastodon is a free, open-source social network server based on ActivityPub Mastodon which facilitates LDAP configuration for authentication. In versions 3.1.5 through 4.2.24, 4.3.0 through 4.3.11 and 4.4.0 through 4.4.3, Mastodon's rate-limiting system has a …
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Medium 6.0
FPDI is Vulnerable to Memory Exhaustion (OOM) through its PDF Parser
FPDI is a collection of PHP classes that facilitate reading pages from existing PDF documents and using them as templates in FPDF. In versions 2.6.2 and below, any application that uses FPDI to process user-supplied PDF files is at risk, causing a Denial of S…
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Medium 4.6
OpenEXR's Unbounded File Header Values can Lead to Out-Of-Memory Errors
OpenEXR provides the specification and reference implementation of the EXR file format, an image storage format for the motion picture industry. In version 3.3.2, applications trust unvalidated dataWindow size values from file headers, which can lead to exces…
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Medium 5.3CVE-2025-54939 Public exploit
LiteSpeed QUIC (LSQUIC) Library before 4.3.1 has an lsquic_engine_packet_in memory leak.
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Medium 5.3
ImageSharp Triggers an Infinite Loop in its GIF Decoder When Skipping Malformed Comment Extension Blocks
ImageSharp is a 2D graphics library. In versions below 2.1.11 and 3.0.0 through 3.1.10, a specially crafted GIF file containing a malformed comment extension block (with a missing block terminator) can cause the ImageSharp GIF decoder to enter an infinite loo…
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Medium 6.9
Ruby SAML DOS vulnerability with large SAML response
The Ruby SAML library is for implementing the client side of a SAML authorization. In versions 1.18.0 and below, a denial-of-service vulnerability exists in ruby-saml even with the message_max_bytesize setting configured. The vulnerability occurs because the …
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Medium 6.2
The issue was addressed with improved memory handling. This issue is fixed in Safari 18.6, iOS 18.6 and iPadOS 18.6, iP…
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Medium 6.5
DoS in Kron Technologies' Kron PAM
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling vulnerability in Kron Technologies Kron PAM allows HTTP DoS. This issue affects Kron PAM: before 3.7.
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Medium 4.5
IBM Security QRadar Network Threat Analytics denial of service
IBM Security QRadar Network Threat Analytics 1.0.0 through 1.3.1 could allow a privileged user to cause a denial of service due to improper allocation of resources.
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Medium 5.3
Starlette has possible denial-of-service vector when parsing large files in multipart forms
Starlette is a lightweight ASGI (Asynchronous Server Gateway Interface) framework/toolkit, designed for building async web services in Python. In versions 0.47.1 and below, when parsing a multi-part form with large files (greater than the default max spool si…
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Medium 4.9
Vulnerability in the MySQL Server product of Oracle MySQL (component: Server: Optimizer). Supported versions that are a…
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Medium 4.3
py-libp2p is vulnerable to DoS attacks through use of large RSA keys
py-libp2p before 0.2.3 allows a peer to cause a denial of service (resource consumption) via a large RSA key.
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Medium 6.3
cpp-httplib does not limit the length of a line
cpp-httplib is a C++11 single-file header-only cross platform HTTP/HTTPS library. Prior to 0.20.1, cpp-httplib does not have a limit for a unique line, permitting an attacker to explore this to allocate memory arbitrarily. This vulnerability is fixed in 0.20.…
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Medium 5.9
Crash due to uncontrolled recursion in protobuf crate
The protobuf crate before 3.7.2 for Rust allows uncontrolled recursion in the protobuf::coded_input_stream::CodedInputStream::skip_group parsing of unknown fields in untrusted input.
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Medium 4.0
Rust Web Push is vulnerable to a DoS attack via a large integer in a Content-Length header
The web-push crate before 0.10.3 for Rust allows a denial of service (memory consumption) in the built-in clients via a large integer in a Content-Length header.
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Medium 4.3
IROAD Dashcam Q9 MFA Pairing Request allocation of resources
A vulnerability has been found in IROAD Dashcam Q9 up to 20250624 and classified as problematic. Affected by this vulnerability is an unknown functionality of the component MFA Pairing Request Handler. The manipulation leads to allocation of resources. The at…
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Medium 6.5
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling in GitLab
An issue has been discovered in GitLab CE/EE affecting all versions from 10.7 before 17.11.5, 18.0 before 18.0.3, and 18.1 before 18.1.1 that could have allowed authenticated attackers to create a DoS condition by sending crafted GraphQL requests.
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Medium 6.5
Denial of Service via Malformed Modbus Packets
Successful exploitation of the vulnerability could allow an attacker to cause repeated reboots, potentially leading to remote denial-of-service and system unavailability.
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Medium 4.2
Login Session Exhaustion
Successful exploitation of the vulnerability could allow an attacker to consume all available session slots and block other users from logging in, thereby preventing legitimate users from gaining access to the product.
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Medium 4.3
The Yealink RPS API before 2025-05-26 lacks rate limiting, potentially enabling information disclosure via excessive re…
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Medium 5.3
Incorrect congestion window growth by optimistic ACK
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 …
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Medium 5.6
CVE-2025-22242 salt advisory
Worker process denial of service through file read operation. .A vulnerability exists in the Master's “pub_ret” method which is exposed to all minions. The un-sanitized input value “jid” is used to construct a path which is then opened for reading. An attacke…
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Medium 6.5
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling in GitLab
An issue has been discovered in GitLab CE/EE affecting all versions from 8.13 before 17.10.7, 17.11 before 17.11.3, and 18.0 before 18.0.1. A lack of input validation in Board Names could be used to trigger a denial of service.
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Medium 6.5
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling in GitLab
An issue has been discovered in GitLab CE/EE affecting all versions from 8.7 before 17.10.8, 17.11 before 17.11.4, and 18.0 before 18.0.2. Improper input validation in Tokens Names could be used to trigger a denial of service.
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Medium 6.5
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling in GitLab
An issue has been discovered in GitLab CE/EE affecting all versions from 2.1.0 before 17.10.8, 17.11 before 17.11.4, and 18.0 before 18.0.2. A lack of input validation in HTTP responses could allow an authenticated user to cause denial of service.