CAPEC-147 XML Ping of the Death

An attacker initiates a resource depletion attack where a large number of small XML messages are delivered at a sufficiently rapid rate to cause a denial of service or crash of the target. Transactions such as repetitive SOAP transactions can deplete resources faster than a simple flooding attack because of the additional resources used by the SOAP protocol and the resources necessary to process SOAP messages. The transactions used are immaterial as long as they cause resource utilization on the target. In other words, this is a normal flooding attack augmented by using messages that will require extra processing on the target.

1. [Explore] [Survey the target] Using a browser or an automated tool, an attacker records all instance of web services to process XML requests. 2. [Exploit] [Launch a resource depletion attack] The attacker delivers a large number of small XML messages to the target URLs found in the explore phase at a sufficiently rapid rate. It causes denial of service to the target application.

• The target must receive and process XML transactions.

• [Low] To send small XML messages • [High] To use distributed network to launch the attack

• Availability: Resource Consumption

• Design: Build throttling mechanism into the resource allocation. Provide for a timeout mechanism for allocated resources whose transaction does not complete within a specified interval. • Implementation: Provide for network flow control and traffic shaping to control access to the resources.