🚨 Unrestricted Resource Consumption

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🚨 Unrestricted Resource Consumption – API4:2023 🚀

March 12, 2025

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