CWE-799 – Improper Control of Interaction Frequency

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Description

The software does not properly limit the number or frequency of interactions that it has with an actor, such as the number of incoming requests.

This can allow the actor to perform actions more frequently than expected. The actor could be a human or an automated process such as a virus or bot. This could be used to cause a denial of service, compromise program logic (such as limiting humans to a single vote), or other consequences. For example, an authentication routine might not limit the number of times an attacker can guess a password. Or, a web site might conduct a poll but only expect humans to vote a maximum of once a day.

Modes of Introduction:

– Architecture and Design

Likelihood of Exploit:

 

Related Weaknesses

CWE-691

 

Consequences

Availability, Access Control, Other: DoS: Resource Consumption (Other), Bypass Protection Mechanism, Other

 

Potential Mitigations

CVE References

 

  • CVE-2002-1876
    • Mail server allows attackers to prevent other users from accessing mail by sending large number of rapid requests.