Technique on mitre.org

T1499.003: Application Exhaustion Flood

Adversaries may target resource intensive features of applications to cause a denial of service (DoS), denying availability to those applications. For example, 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.

Positive Technologies products that cover the technique

MaxPatrol SIEM knowledge base

network_devices_abnormal_activity: PT-CR-473: Possible_Rogue_FHRP_Peer: FHRP authentication error sap_suspicious_user_activity: PT-CR-255: SAPASABAP_GW_Server_Registration_Anomaly: Multiple attempts to register a server

Detection

ID	DS0013	Data source and component	Sensor Health: Host Status	Description	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. Monitor for logging, messaging, and other artifacts highlighting the health of host sensors (ex: metrics, errors, and/or exceptions from logging applications)

ID	DS0029	Data source and component	Network Traffic: Network Traffic Flow	Description	Monitor network data for uncommon data flows. Processes utilizing the network that do not normally have network communication or have never been seen before are suspicious.

ID	DS0029	Data source and component	Network Traffic: Network Traffic Content	Description	Monitor and analyze traffic patterns and packet inspection associated to protocol(s), leveraging SSL/TLS inspection for encrypted traffic, that do not follow the expected protocol standards and traffic flows (e.g extraneous packets that do not belong to established flows, gratuitous or anomalous traffic patterns, anomalous syntax, or structure). Consider correlation with process monitoring and command line to detect anomalous processes execution and command line arguments associated to traffic patterns (e.g. monitor anomalies in use of files that do not normally initiate connections for respective protocol(s)).

ID	DS0015	Data source and component	Application Log: Application Log Content	Description	Monitor for third-party application logging, messaging, and/or other artifacts that may target resource intensive features of web applications to cause a denial of service (DoS). 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. Externally monitor the availability of services that may be targeted by an Endpoint DoS.

ID	Data source and component	Description
DS0013	Sensor Health: Host Status	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. Monitor for logging, messaging, and other artifacts highlighting the health of host sensors (ex: metrics, errors, and/or exceptions from logging applications)
DS0029	Network Traffic: Network Traffic Flow	Monitor network data for uncommon data flows. Processes utilizing the network that do not normally have network communication or have never been seen before are suspicious.
DS0029	Network Traffic: Network Traffic Content	Monitor and analyze traffic patterns and packet inspection associated to protocol(s), leveraging SSL/TLS inspection for encrypted traffic, that do not follow the expected protocol standards and traffic flows (e.g extraneous packets that do not belong to established flows, gratuitous or anomalous traffic patterns, anomalous syntax, or structure). Consider correlation with process monitoring and command line to detect anomalous processes execution and command line arguments associated to traffic patterns (e.g. monitor anomalies in use of files that do not normally initiate connections for respective protocol(s)).
DS0015	Application Log: Application Log Content	Monitor for third-party application logging, messaging, and/or other artifacts that may target resource intensive features of web applications to cause a denial of service (DoS). 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. Externally monitor the availability of services that may be targeted by an Endpoint DoS.

Mitigation

ID	M1037	Name	Filter Network Traffic	Description	Leverage services provided by Content Delivery Networks (CDN) or providers specializing in DoS mitigations to filter traffic upstream from services. Filter boundary traffic by blocking source addresses sourcing the attack, blocking ports that are being targeted, or blocking protocols being used for transport.

ID	Name	Description
M1037	Filter Network Traffic	Leverage services provided by Content Delivery Networks (CDN) or providers specializing in DoS mitigations to filter traffic upstream from services. Filter boundary traffic by blocking source addresses sourcing the attack, blocking ports that are being targeted, or blocking protocols being used for transport.