CWE-405: Asymmetric Resource Consumption (Amplification)

Code examples

Illustrative examples from MITRE showing how the weakness appears in code.

This code listens on a port for DNS requests and sends the result to the requesting address.

Vulnerable example

python

sock = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_DGRAM)

This code sends a DNS record to a requesting IP address. UDP allows the source IP address to be easily changed ('spoofed'), thus allowing an attacker to redirect responses to a target, which may be then be overwhelmed by the network traffic.

This function prints the contents of a specified file requested by a user.

Vulnerable example

php

function printFile($username,$filename){

This code first reads a specified file into memory, then prints the file if the user is authorized to see its contents. The read of the file into memory may be resource intensive and is unnecessary if the user is not allowed to see the file anyway.

The DTD and the very brief XML below illustrate what is meant by an XML bomb. The ZERO entity contains one character, the letter A. The choice of entity name ZERO is being used to indicate length equivalent to that exponent on two, that is, the length of ZERO is 2^0. Similarly, ONE refers to ZERO twice, therefore the XML parser will expand ONE to a length of 2, or 2^1. Ultimately, we reach entity THIRTYTWO, which will expand to 2^32 characters in length, or 4 GB, probably consuming far more data than expected.

Attack input

xml

<?xml version="1.0"?>

This example attempts to check if an input string is a "sentence" [REF-1164].

An adversary can cause significant resource consumption on a server by filtering the cryptographic algorithms offered by the client to the ones that are the most resource-intensive on the server side. After discovering which cryptographic algorithms are supported by the server, a malicious client can send the initial cryptographic handshake messages that contains only the resource-intensive algorithms. For some cryptographic protocols, these messages can be completely prefabricated, as the resource-intensive part of the handshake happens on the server-side first (such as TLS), rather than on the client side. In the case of cryptographic protocols where the resource-intensive part should happen on the client-side first (such as SSH), a malicious client can send a forged/precalculated computation result, which seems correct to the server, so the resource-intensive part of the handshake is going to happen on the server side. A malicious client is required to send only the initial messages of a cryptographic handshake to initiate the resource-consuming part of the cryptographic handshake. These messages are usually small, and generating them requires minimal computational effort, enabling a denial-of-service attack. An additional risk is the fact that higher key size increases the effectiveness of the attack. Cryptographic protocols where the clients have influence over the size of the used key (such as TLS 1.3 or SSH) are most at risk, as the client can enforce the highest key size supported by the server.

CWE-405: Asymmetric Resource Consumption (Amplification)

Overview

Real-world CVEs

Common consequences

How it happens

When it is introduced

Applies to

How to prevent it

Code examples

Illustrative examples

Terminology & mappings

Mapped taxonomies

Frequently asked questions

What is CWE-405?

What CVEs are caused by CWE-405?

Is CWE-405 part of the OWASP Top 10?

How do you prevent CWE-405?

What are the consequences of CWE-405?

Is CWE-405 actively exploited?

References

Stay ahead of CWE-405

Overview

Real-world CVEs

Common consequences

How it happens

When it is introduced

Applies to

How to prevent it

Code examples

Illustrative examples

Related weaknesses

Parent

Child

Peer

Terminology & mappings

Mapped taxonomies

Frequently asked questions

What is CWE-405?

What CVEs are caused by CWE-405?

Is CWE-405 part of the OWASP Top 10?

How do you prevent CWE-405?

What are the consequences of CWE-405?

Is CWE-405 actively exploited?

References

Stay ahead of CWE-405