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 4.3CVE-2026-65650 Public exploit
Elgg before 7.0.0 does not check image dimensions to prevent denial of service via a large avatar upload.
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High 7.5
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A DNSSEC validating resolver that is under a random subdomain attack against a DNSSEC-signed zone can suffer from runaway memory usage. The attacker needs to be able to send queries faster than the resolver can perform validation. The increased memory usage c…
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High —
gRPC-Go: xDS RBAC and HTTP/2 Vulnerabilities
Multiple security vulnerabilities have been identified and addressed in grpc-go affecting the xDS RBAC authorization engine (internal/xds/rbac) and the HTTP/2 transport server implementation (internal/transport). These vulnerabilities could result in: - Autho…
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Medium 5.3
Vulnerability in Oracle Java SE (component: JavaFX). The supported version that is affected is Oracle Java SE: 8u491. E…
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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). An authenticated user can submit a specially crafted request to affected Entity Analytics endpoints containing an ov…
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High 7.5
react-server-dom: Denial of Service in Server Functions
A denial of service vulnerability could be triggered by sending specially crafted HTTP requests to server function endpoints, this could lead to excessive CPU usage; affecting the following packages: react-server-dom-webpack, react-server-dom-parcel, react-se…
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Medium 5.3
Libssh: libssh: denial of service via sftp responses with unknown request ids
A flaw was found in libssh. A malicious SFTP server can send responses for unknown request IDs that libssh clients keep queued indefinitely, causing unbounded memory growth and client-side denial of service.
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High 7.5
Netty SPDY SETTINGS frame count materializes unbounded settings map
Netty is a network application framework for development of protocol servers and clients. Prior to 4.1.136.Final and 4.2.16.Final, Netty's SPDY SETTINGS decoder accepts a peer-declared SETTINGS entry count up to the 24-bit frame-length limit and materializes …
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Medium 5.3
FreeScout has unrestricted file upload without rate limiting that leads to resource exhaustion (DoS)
FreeScout is a free help desk and shared inbox built with PHP's Laravel framework. Prior to version 1.8.224, the FreeScout helpdesk application does not enforce rate limiting on the file upload endpoint. Any user can flood the server with upload requests, lea…
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Medium 5.3
Mailpit: Sibling-endpoint memory-exhaustion DoS via unbounded JSON body on /api/v1/messages, /api/v1/tags, and /api/v1/message/{id}/release (incomplete fix of GHSA-fpxj-m5q8-fphw)
Mailpit is an email testing tool and API for developers. Prior to version 1.30.1, the fix for GHSA-fpxj-m5q8-fphw (CVE-2026-45710, "Mailpit: Set a default 50MB p/m limit to prevent DoS via unlimited SMTP DATA and /api/v1/send body sizes") wrapped only `POST /…
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High 7.5
Mailpit: Unauthenticated remote memory-exhaustion DoS via unlimited SMTP DATA and /api/v1/send body sizes
Mailpit is an email testing tool and API for developers. Prior to version 1.30.0, the Mailpit SMTP server has a Server.MaxSize int field that controls the maximum allowed DATA payload size, but the field is never assigned anywhere outside test code, leaving i…
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Medium 5.9
Mailpit: Concurrent map read & write in proxy CSS rewriter - remote unauth crash (fatal error: concurrent map read and map write)
Mailpit is an email testing tool and API for developers. Prior to version 1.30.0, the screenshot/print proxy (/proxy?data=…) maintains a package-level assets map[string]MessageAssets cache, but reads the map without holding assetsMutex while a long-running cl…
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Medium 5.3
Gdbusserver: glib2: gdbusserver pre-authentication dos via unbounded sasl line buffering
A denial-of-service and resource exhaustion vulnerability exists within the `GDBus` component of GLib. The `gdbusauth` authentication mechanism fails to enforce proper length limitations on data lines read from a client. An unauthenticated local or remote att…
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Medium 5.3
SurrealDB before 3.1.0 Memory Amplification via /sql WebSocket
SurrealDB versions before 3.1.0 fail to apply the SURREAL_WEBSOCKET_MAX_MESSAGE_SIZE limit to anonymous /sql WebSocket connections, allowing attackers to buffer unbounded frames in the per-connection read buffer. Attackers can stream WebSocket frames larger t…
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Low 2.3
SurrealDB before 2.2.2 Denial of Service via JavaScript Scripting
SurrealDB before 2.0.5, 2.1.x before 2.1.5, and 2.2.x before 2.2.2 does not enforce a default execution-time limit on embedded JavaScript scripting functions when the scripting capability is explicitly enabled (via --allow-scripting or --allow-all). An authen…
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Medium 6.3
websocket-driver: Resource limit bypass via message compression
websocket-driver is a WebSocket protocol handler with pluggable I/O. Prior to 0.7.5, if this library is used with the permessage-deflate extension, a WebSocket server or client can be made to accept messages that are larger than the configured maximum message…
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High 7.5
dd-trace-py: Improper parsing of W3C baggage headers may lead to DoS
Datadog dd-trace-py is the Datadog Python APM client. Prior to 4.8.2, Datadog tracing libraries that implement W3C baggage propagation parse incoming baggage HTTP headers without enforcing DD_TRACE_BAGGAGE_MAX_ITEMS or DD_TRACE_BAGGAGE_MAX_BYTES limits on the…
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High 7.5
dd-trace-go: Improper parsing of W3C baggage headers may lead to DoS
Datadog dd-trace-go is a Go client library for Datadog application performance monitoring, profiling, and security monitoring. Prior to 2.8.1, Datadog tracing libraries that implement W3C baggage propagation parse incoming baggage HTTP headers without enforci…
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High 7.5
dd-trace: Improper parsing of W3C baggage headers may lead to DoS
dd-trace is the Datadog APM client for Node.js. Prior to 5.100.0, W3C baggage propagation in packages/dd-trace/src/baggage.js and packages/dd-trace/src/opentracing/propagation/text_map.js parsed incoming baggage HTTP headers without enforcing DD_TRACE_BAGGAGE…
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High 7.5
Netty: Denial of Service via Unbounded Headers in StompSubframeDecoder
Netty is a network application framework for development of protocol servers and clients. Prior to 4.1.136.Final and 4.2.16.Final, io.netty.handler.codec.stomp.StompSubframeDecoder fails to limit the total number of headers or their cumulative size per frame,…
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Medium 5.3
OpenTelemetry Rust: Unbounded memory allocation in W3C Baggage propagation
OpenTelemetry Rust is the Rust OpenTelemetry implementation. In 0.32.0 and earlier, BaggagePropagator::extract_with_context in opentelemetry_sdk did not enforce W3C Baggage size limits before parsing an inbound baggage header, so a large attacker-controlled h…
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Medium 6.3
websocket-driver: Memory exhaustion in HTTP header parser
websocket-driver is a WebSocket protocol handler with pluggable I/O. Prior to 0.8.1, when websocket-driver is used to implement a WebSocket server on top of a TCP server using WebSocket::Driver.server() or to complement a WebSocket client, a peer can make a s…
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Medium 6.9
websocket-driver: Memory exhaustion via abuse of protocol length headers
websocket-driver is a WebSocket protocol handler with pluggable I/O. Prior to 0.8.1, draft versions of the WebSocket protocol in websocket-driver include a length header that allows an arbitrarily large integer to be encoded as bytes with the high bit set, an…
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Medium 6.3
websocket-driver: Resource limit bypass via message compression
### Impact If this library is used in tandem with the `permessage-deflate` extension, a WebSocket server or client can be made to accept messages that are larger than the configured maximum message size. This is because this limit is checked against the messa…
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Medium 4.8
NCalc: Denial of Service via Unbounded and Non-Terminating Factorial Evaluation
NCalc is a fast, lightweight expression evaluator for .NET. Prior to 6.1.1, the factorial operator implementation in src/NCalc.Core/Helpers/MathHelper.cs permits specially crafted expressions with extremely large factorial operands, causing excessive CPU cons…
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Medium 6.5
Zeroconf: Unbounded TC-deferred queue allows LAN-local memory exhaustion via spoofed-source flood
Zeroconf is a pure Python implementation of multicast DNS service discovery. Prior to 0.149.12, AsyncListener.handle_query_or_defer retained every truncated TC-bit incoming query, each up to _MAX_MSG_ABSOLUTE = 8966 bytes, in self._deferred[addr] and armed a …
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Medium 6.5
Zeroconf: Unbounded DNS record cache allows LAN-local memory exhaustion via multicast flood
Zeroconf is a pure Python implementation of multicast DNS service discovery. Prior to 0.149.7, DNSCache._async_add inserted every response record into cache, _expirations, _expire_heap, and service_cache without a cap, allowing unauthenticated hosts on the lo…
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Medium 5.9
Sigstore Timestamp Authority: OOM due to unbounded metric label cardinality
Sigstore Timestamp Authority is a service for issuing RFC 3161 timestamps. Prior to 2.1.0, the global wrapMetrics middleware records raw HTTP request path r.URL.Path and raw HTTP request method r.Method as Prometheus labels for latency and request count metri…
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High 7.5
Datadog .NET Tracer: Improper parsing of W3C baggage headers may lead to DoS
Datadog .NET Tracer is a client library for Datadog APM for .NET applications. Prior to 3.43.0, Datadog tracing libraries that implement W3C baggage propagation parse incoming baggage HTTP headers without enforcing DD_TRACE_BAGGAGE_MAX_ITEMS or DD_TRACE_BAGGA…
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Medium 5.3
Symfony UX: Denial of service in symfony/ux-live-component via unbounded batch action requests
Symfony UX is a JavaScript ecosystem for Symfony. From 2.5.0 until 2.36.0 and 3.1.0, Symfony\UX\LiveComponent\Controller\BatchActionController::__invoke() iterates over the client-supplied actions array and issues a full HttpKernel sub-request for each entry;…
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Medium 5.7
Denial of service vulnerability in GitHub Enterprise Server allowed service disruption via deeply nested YAML in release notes configuration
A denial of service vulnerability was identified in GitHub Enterprise Server that allowed an authenticated user to cause service disruption by supplying a repository release notes configuration file containing deeply nested YAML. When release notes were gener…
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Medium 6.5
OpenClaw < 2026.6.1 Denial of Service via Remote Media URLs
OpenClaw versions before 2026.6.1 contain a denial of service vulnerability where remote media URLs can trigger slow-read attacks that exhaust gateway worker resources. Attackers with access to configured input paths can supply remote media URLs that consume …
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High 7.5
h2o has HTTP/2 state amplification
h2o is an HTTP server with support for HTTP/1.x, HTTP/2 and HTTP/3. Prior to commit 9265bdd, there is an HTTP/2 state amplification issue that combines HPACK decompression amplification with Slowloris-style stream stalling. Amplified decoded header state can …
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High 7.5
h2o is vulnerable to musl libc stack overflow
h2o is an HTTP server with support for HTTP/1.x, HTTP/2 and HTTP/3. Prior to commit 6b5370d, h2o is vulnerable to a Denial of Service attack when calling alloca under certain conditions. When serving static files, h2o builds the file path on stack, by calling…
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Medium 5.3
Quicly is vulnerable to memory exhaustion
Quicly is an IETF QUIC protocol implementation intended primarily for use within the H2O HTTP server. Prior to commit 8b178e6, an adversarial peer could send a STREAM frame carrying just one byte at the largest offset being permitted to obtain additional flow…
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Medium 6.3
Buffa: Memory Exhaustion Denial of Service in decode_unknown_field via Unbounded Allocation
Buffa is a pure-Rust Protocol Buffers implementation with first-class protobuf editions support. Prior to 0.8.0, the decode_unknown_field function in buffa's protobuf decoder allocated heap memory in proportion to untrusted input (unknown fields in the serial…
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High 7.5
Loki detected_fields query limits results in unbounded memory allocation
Loki queries with large limits can cause large memory allocations which can impact the availability of the service, depending on its deployment strategy.
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High 7.5
Feast: resource exhaustion via websocket endpoint
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High 7.5
BIG-IP HTTP/2 vulnerability
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High 8.2CVE-2026-13585 Public exploit
Allocation of Resources Without Limits and Throttling and Sensitive Information in Resource Not Removed Before Reuse in…