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TECHNIQUES
PRE-ATT&CK
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Privilege Escalation
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Access Token Manipulation
Boot or Logon Autostart Execution
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Event Triggered Execution
Hijack Execution Flow
Process Injection
Scheduled Task/Job
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Defense Evasion
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Access Token Manipulation
Execution Guardrails
File and Directory Permissions Modification
Hide Artifacts
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Impair Defenses
Indicator Removal on Host
Masquerading
Modify Authentication Process
Modify Cloud Compute Infrastructure
Obfuscated Files or Information
Pre-OS Boot
Process Injection
Signed Binary Proxy Execution
Signed Script Proxy Execution
Subvert Trust Controls
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Trusted Developer Utilities Proxy Execution
Use Alternate Authentication Material
Valid Accounts
Virtualization/Sandbox Evasion
Credential Access
Brute Force
Credentials from Password Stores
Input Capture
Man-in-the-Middle
Modify Authentication Process
OS Credential Dumping
Steal or Forge Kerberos Tickets
Unsecured Credentials
Discovery
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Remote Service Session Hijacking
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Use Alternate Authentication Material
Collection
Archive Collected Data
Data from Information Repositories
Data Staged
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Application Layer Protocol
Data Encoding
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Dynamic Resolution
Encrypted Channel
Proxy
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Exfiltration
Exfiltration Over Alternative Protocol
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Impact
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Disk Wipe
Endpoint Denial of Service
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  1. Home
  2. Techniques
  3. Enterprise
  4. Endpoint Denial of Service
  5. Application Exhaustion Flood

Endpoint Denial of Service: Application Exhaustion Flood

ID Name
T1499.001 OS Exhaustion Flood
T1499.002 Service Exhaustion Flood
T1499.003 Application Exhaustion Flood
T1499.004 Application or System Exploitation

Adversaries may target resource intensive features of web applications to cause a denial of service (DoS). Specific features in web applications may be highly resource intensive. Repeated requests to those features may be able to exhaust system resources and deny access to the application or the server itself. [1]

ID: T1499.003
Sub-technique of:  T1499
Tactic: Impact
Platforms: AWS, Azure, Azure AD, GCP, Linux, Office 365, SaaS, Windows, macOS
Data Sources: Network device logs, Network device logs, Network intrusion detection system, SSL/TLS inspection, Web application firewall logs, Web logs
Impact Type: Availability
Version: 1.0
Created: 20 February 2020
Last Modified: 29 March 2020

Mitigations

Mitigation Description
Filter Network Traffic

Leverage services provided by Content Delivery Networks (CDN) or providers specializing in DoS mitigations to filter traffic upstream from services.[2] Filter boundary traffic by blocking source addresses sourcing the attack, blocking ports that are being targeted, or blocking protocols being used for transport.

Detection

Detection of Endpoint DoS can sometimes be achieved before the effect is sufficient to cause significant impact to the availability of the service, but such response time typically requires very aggressive monitoring and responsiveness. Typical network throughput monitoring tools such as netflow, SNMP, and custom scripts can be used to detect sudden increases in circuit utilization.[3] Real-time, automated, and qualitative study of the network traffic can identify a sudden surge in one type of protocol can be used to detect an attack as it starts.

In addition to network level detections, endpoint logging and instrumentation can be useful for detection. Attacks targeting web applications may generate logs in the web server, application server, and/or database server that can be used to identify the type of attack, possibly before the impact is felt.

References

  1. Philippe Alcoy, Steinthor Bjarnason, Paul Bowen, C.F. Chui, Kirill Kasavchnko, and Gary Sockrider of Netscout Arbor. (2018, January). Insight into the Global Threat Landscape - Netscout Arbor's 13th Annual Worldwide Infrastructure Security Report. Retrieved April 22, 2019.
  2. Meintanis, S., Revuelto, V., Socha, K.. (2017, March 10). DDoS Overview and Response Guide. Retrieved April 24, 2019.
  1. Cisco. (n.d.). Detecting and Analyzing Network Threats With NetFlow. Retrieved April 25, 2019.