CWE-405

Asymmetric Resource Consumption (Amplification)

Weakness Description

The product does not properly control situations in which an adversary can cause the product to consume or produce excessive resources without requiring the adversary to invest equivalent work or otherwise prove authorization, i.e., the adversary's influence is "asymmetric."

This can lead to poor performance due to "amplification" of resource consumption, typically in a non-linear fashion. This situation is worsened if the product allows malicious users or attackers to consume more resources than their access level permits.

Potential Mitigations

Architecture and Design

An application must make resources available to a client commensurate with the client's access level.

Architecture and Design

An application must, at all times, keep track of allocated resources and meter their usage appropriately.

System Configuration

Consider disabling resource-intensive algorithms on the server side, such as Diffie-Hellman key exchange.

Effectiveness: High

Common Consequences

Availability
DoS: AmplificationDoS: Resource Consumption (CPU)DoS: Resource Consumption (Memory)DoS: Resource Consumption (Other)

Sometimes this is a factor in "flood" attacks, but other types of amplification exist.

Advertisement

Related Weaknesses