CWE-834

Excessive Iteration

Weakness Description

The product performs an iteration or loop without sufficiently limiting the number of times that the loop is executed.

If the iteration can be influenced by an attacker, this weakness could allow attackers to consume excessive resources such as CPU or memory. In many cases, a loop does not need to be infinite in order to cause enough resource consumption to adversely affect the product or its host system; it depends on the amount of resources consumed per iteration.

Common Consequences

Availability
DoS: Resource Consumption (CPU)DoS: Resource Consumption (Memory)DoS: AmplificationDoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart

Excessive looping will cause unexpected consumption of resources, such as CPU cycles or memory. The product's operation may slow down, or cause a long time to respond. If limited resources such as memory are consumed for each iteration, the loop may eventually cause a crash or program exit due to exhaustion of resources, such as an out-of-memory error.

Detection Methods

Dynamic Analysis with Manual Results Interpretation

According to SOAR [REF-1479], the following detection techniques may be useful: ``` Cost effective for partial coverage: ``` Fuzz Tester Framework-based Fuzzer Forced Path Execution

Effectiveness: SOAR Partial

Manual Static Analysis - Source Code

According to SOAR [REF-1479], the following detection techniques may be useful: ``` Cost effective for partial coverage: ``` Focused Manual Spotcheck - Focused manual analysis of source Manual Source Code Review (not inspections)

Effectiveness: SOAR Partial

Automated Static Analysis - Source Code

According to SOAR [REF-1479], the following detection techniques may be useful: ``` Highly cost effective: ``` Context-configured Source Code Weakness Analyzer

Effectiveness: High

Architecture or Design Review

According to SOAR [REF-1479], the following detection techniques may be useful: ``` Highly cost effective: ``` Inspection (IEEE 1028 standard) (can apply to requirements, design, source code, etc.)

Effectiveness: High

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