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
2,488 results · Feed
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Medium 4.9
Wazuh: Cluster Protocol Memory Exhaustion (DoS) via unbounded receive_str allocation and div_msg_box accumulation
Wazuh is a free and open source platform used for threat prevention, detection, and response. From 3.9.0 until 4.14.5 and 5.0.0-beta2, the Wazuh cluster protocol in framework/wazuh/core/cluster/common.py allows an authenticated cluster node to exhaust memory …
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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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Medium 4.4
Vulnerability in the Oracle VM VirtualBox product of Oracle Virtualization (component: Core). The supported version tha…
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Medium 5.3
ZEBRA: Mempool transaction admission denial via single-peer inbound queue saturation
ZEBRA is a Zcash node written entirely in Rust. Prior to 4.5.0, one unauthenticated P2P peer can monopolize all 25 MAX_INBOUND_CONCURRENCY slots in Zebra's inbound mempool download and verification pipeline. In zebrad/src/components/mempool/downloads.rs, the …
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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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Medium 6.5
Wazuh 4.0.0 < 4.14.7 API DoS via Deeply Nested JSON auth_context
Wazuh 4.0.0 before 4.14.7 and 5.0.0-beta2 contain a denial of service vulnerability that allows authenticated attackers with allow_run_as enabled to exhaust CPU resources by submitting arbitrarily deeply nested JSON structures to the POST /security/user/authe…
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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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Medium 4.3
ArcadeDB before 26.8.1 Denial of Service via range()
ArcadeDB before 26.8.1 contains a denial of service vulnerability in the Cypher range() function that allows authenticated users to exhaust server heap memory. Attackers can submit oversized range() expressions with large bounds to trigger OutOfMemoryError an…
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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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Medium 4.3
vLLM: Derender endpoints decode caller-supplied GenerateResponse token IDs without output bounds
vLLM is an inference and serving engine for large language models. Prior to 0.26.0, the /v1/completions/derender and /v1/chat/completions/derender endpoints accept caller-supplied GenerateResponse objects whose generate_responses, choices, token_ids, prompt_l…
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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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Critical 9.8
openssl_encrypt before 1.4.0 TOTP Rate Limiter Bypass
openssl_encrypt versions before 1.4.0 use an in-memory rate limiter for TOTP brute-force protection that is not shared across workers and is lost on server restart. Attackers can distribute authentication attempts across multiple server instances or retry imm…
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Medium 6.5
Net::OAuth versions before 0.32 for Perl allow memory exhaustion via unbounded caching of failed module loads in smart_require
Net::OAuth versions before 0.32 for Perl allow memory exhaustion via unbounded caching of failed module loads in smart_require. smart_require stores results in a process-global hash with no bound and no eviction, and keeps an entry for every class name it is …
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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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Medium 6.5
Scriban before 7.0.0 Denial of Service via Unbounded Template Output
Scriban before 7.0.0 (affected versions <= 6.6.0) contains a denial-of-service vulnerability in which the LimitToString safety limit (default 1MB) can be bypassed because ObjectToString resets the per-call length counter (_currentToStringLength) on every top-…
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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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Medium 5.3
TRENDnet TEW-816DRM bftpd bftpd.conf allocation of resources
A vulnerability was found in TRENDnet TEW-816DRM GURNC4.OT182B-C-TN-R1B028-US.EN. This impacts an unknown function of the file /etc/bftpd.conf of the component bftpd. The manipulation of the argument USERLIMIT_GLOBAL results in allocation of resources. It is …
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Medium 6.5
FileBrowser before 2.63.19 Disk Exhaustion via TUS Upload
FileBrowser versions before 2.63.19 fail to enforce the declared Upload-Length in the TUS resumable-upload PATCH endpoint, allowing authenticated users to write arbitrary data to disk. Attackers can send oversized request bodies that exceed the declared uploa…
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Medium 5.5
Libdm: lvm2: libdm: denial of service via uncontrolled recursion in config parser
A flaw was found in libdm. A local attacker could craft a malicious Logical Volume Manager (LVM) metadata configuration with deeply nested structures. This could lead to uncontrolled recursion in the libdm configuration file parser, exhausting the stack and c…
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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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Medium 5.3
IBM i is Affected By Multiple Vulnerabilities in DRDA / DDM
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 processing of DRDA and DDM resynchronization requests.
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Medium 6.5
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling in Kibana Leading to Denial of Service
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling (CWE-770) in Kibana can lead to denial of service via Excessive Allocation (CAPEC-130). An authenticated user who is authorized to manage maintenance windows could submit a specially crafted, malformed payl…
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Medium 6.5
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling in Kibana Leading to Denial of Service
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling (CWE-770) in Kibana can lead to denial of service via Excessive Allocation (CAPEC-130). An authenticated user with read-only privileges to the alerting feature could submit a specially crafted, malformed pa…
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Medium 6.5
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling in Kibana Leading to Denial of Service
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling (CWE-770) in Kibana can lead to denial of service via Excessive Allocation (CAPEC-130). A specially crafted, malformed payload submitted to a Kibana visualization feature by an authenticated user holding on…
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Medium 6.5
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling in Kibana Leading to Denial of Service
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling (CWE-770) in Kibana can lead to a denial of service via Excessive Allocation (CAPEC-130). A specially crafted request submitted by an authenticated user with minimal privileges to a validation capability of…
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Medium 6.5
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling in Kibana Leading to Denial of Service
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling (CWE-770) in Kibana can lead to a denial of service via Excessive Allocation (CAPEC-130). A user-supplied list of document fields accepted by the Kibana Playground for RAG feature was neither bounded in len…
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Medium 6.5
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling in Elasticsearch Leading to Denial of Service
A flaw in Elasticsearch allows an authenticated user holding only read privileges to submit a small search request containing a crafted user-supplied input. Processing that input causes a specific internal component to allocate memory without any upper bound,…
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Medium 6.5
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling in Kibana Leading to Denial of Service
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling (CWE-770) in Kibana can lead to denial of service via Excessive Allocation (CAPEC-130). A query expression accepted by a connector reporting operation was processed without any limit on its size, and an ove…
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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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Medium 5.3
@hono/node-server: Unauthenticated memory-leak DoS via aborted WebSocket handshake
@hono/node-server allows running the Hono application on Node.js. From 2.0.0 until 2.0.10, a WebSocket upgrade request to an upgradeWebSocket route with a missing or malformed Sec-WebSocket-Key header causes src/websocket.ts to retain the request's IncomingMe…
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Medium 4.3
Unbounded Arch package file metadata can cause resource amplification in Gitea package uploads
Unbounded Arch package file metadata can cause resource amplification in Gitea package uploads
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Medium 6.5
Denial of Service via Unbounded io.ReadAll in NPM Package Tag Endpoint
Denial of Service via Unbounded io.ReadAll in NPM Package Tag Endpoint