🚨 Unrestricted Resource Consumption – API4:2023 🚀

I'm kicking off a series of articles on API Security to help us—developers👨💻👩💻—better understand and implement secure coding in our software design. 🛡️

Here is the fourth one: Unrestricted Resource Consumption

APIs are built to handle requests efficiently, but what happens when there are no limits? 🤯 Attackers can exploit APIs by overwhelming resources, leading to downtime, performance issues, and financial losses.

⚠️ What is Unrestricted Resource Consumption?

This vulnerability occurs when an API fails to enforce limits on:

• CPU usage 🖥️ – High-load requests slow down the system.
• Memory consumption 🧠 – Large payloads crash the server.
• Storage usage 💾 – Unchecked uploads fill up disk space.
• Network bandwidth 🌐 – Excessive requests cause DDoS-like effects.
• Database queries 📊 – Unoptimized queries degrade performance.

🎯 How Does It Happen?

• 🚫 No rate limiting – Attackers flood the API with thousands of requests.
• 🚫 Large file uploads – Unrestricted file sizes consume all available storage.
• 🚫 Expensive operations – APIs allow computationally heavy queries.
• 🚫 Unbounded loops – Recursive processing eats up CPU and memory.

🔍 Real-World Risks:

• ✅ Denial of Service (DoS) – System becomes unresponsive 📉
• ✅ Increased operational costs – Overuse of cloud resources 💸
• ✅ Data integrity issues – API overload leads to failed transactions ⚠️

🛡️ How to Prevent It?

• 🔸 Enforce rate limiting ⏳ – Limit requests per user/IP with throttling.
• 🔸 Set quotas on resource usage 📏 – Restrict CPU, memory, and bandwidth.
• 🔸 Limit payload sizes 📦 – Reject oversized requests.
• 🔸 Monitor API usage 📊 – Detect abnormal activity early.
• 🔸 Use async processing 🔄 – Prevent long-running requests from blocking resources.

🚀 APIs should be scalable, but not limitless!

#APISecurity #OWASP #CyberSecurity #RateLimiting #SecureCoding

• "Availability" - Web Service Security Cheat Sheet
• "DoS Prevention" - GraphQL Cheat Sheet
• "Mitigating Batching Attacks" - GraphQL Cheat Sheet
• CWE-770: Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling
• CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption
• CWE-799: Improper Control of Interaction Frequency
• "Rate Limiting (Throttling)" - Security Strategies for Microservices-based Application Systems, NIST