| Name |
HTTP DoS |
|
| Likelyhood of attack |
Typical severity |
| High |
Low |
|
| Summary |
An attacker performs flooding at the HTTP level to bring down only a particular web application rather than anything listening on a TCP/IP connection. This denial of service attack requires substantially fewer packets to be sent which makes DoS harder to detect. This is an equivalent of SYN flood in HTTP. The idea is to keep the HTTP session alive indefinitely and then repeat that hundreds of times. This attack targets resource depletion weaknesses in web server software. The web server will wait to attacker's responses on the initiated HTTP sessions while the connection threads are being exhausted. |
| Prerequisites |
HTTP protocol is usedWeb server used is vulnerable to denial of service via HTTP flooding |
| Solutions | Configuration: Configure web server software to limit the waiting period on opened HTTP sessions Design: Use load balancing mechanisms |
| Related Weaknesses |
|
CWE ID
|
Description
|
| CWE-770 |
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling |
| CWE-772 |
Missing Release of Resource after Effective Lifetime |
|
| Related CAPECS |
|
CAPEC ID
|
Description
|
| CAPEC-227 |
An adversary attempts to deny legitimate users access to a resource by continually engaging a specific resource in an attempt to keep the resource tied up as long as possible. The adversary's primary goal is not to crash or flood the target, which would alert defenders; rather it is to repeatedly perform actions or abuse algorithmic flaws such that a given resource is tied up and not available to a legitimate user. By carefully crafting a requests that keep the resource engaged through what is seemingly benign requests, legitimate users are limited or completely denied access to the resource. The degree to which the attack is successful depends upon the adversary's ability to sustain resource requests over time with a volume that exceeds the normal usage by legitimate users, as well as other mitigating circumstances such as the target's ability to shift load or acquire additional resources to deal with the depletion. This attack differs from a flooding attack as it is not entirely dependent upon large volumes of requests, and it differs from resource leak exposures which tend to exploit the surrounding environment needed for the resource to function. The key factor in a sustainment attack are the repeated requests that take longer to process than usual. |
|
| Taxonomy: ATTACK |
|
Entry ID
|
Entry Name
|
| 1499.001 |
Endpoint Denial of Service:OS Exhaustion Flood |
| 1499.004 |
Endpoint Denial of Service:Application or System Exploitation |
|