Technique
№ 032 · class: exfiltration / impact
Resource Exhaustion
Resource exhaustion as a technique involves deliberately overloading target systems to make them unavailable to legitimate users. The attacker targets CPU, memory, network bandwidth, disk, or connection limits.
Term
description · examples · notesResource exhaustion as a technique involves deliberately overloading target systems to make them unavailable to legitimate users. The attacker targets CPU, memory, network bandwidth, disk, or connection limits.
Description
The technique is used in distributed denial-of-service attacks, but also in targeted attacks where a small number of specially crafted requests consume disproportionate resources.
Examples
- Sending massive traffic to a web server from a network of compromised devices
- Requests triggering highly complex database queries consuming CPU capacity
- Opening a large number of connections that hold resources busy without transmitting data
Notes
- A combination of DDoS mitigation services and rate limiting provides the most effective protection.
Threats
used by 8Threats that use it. Select one to open its page.
Defenses
countered by 4How it is countered. Select one to open its page.