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  1. Frameworks
  2. >ATTACK
  3. >Impact
  4. >ATTACK-T1499.001
ATTACK-T1499.001Active

OS Exhaustion Flood

Statement

Adversaries may launch a denial of service (DoS) attack targeting an endpoint's operating system (OS). A system's OS is responsible for managing the finite resources as well as preventing the entire system from being overwhelmed by excessive demands on its capacity. These attacks do not need to exhaust the actual resources on a system; the attacks may simply exhaust the limits and available resources that an OS self-imposes.

Different ways to achieve this exist, including TCP state-exhaustion attacks such as SYN floods and ACK floods.(Citation: Arbor AnnualDoSreport Jan 2018) With SYN floods, excessive amounts of SYN packets are sent, but the 3-way TCP handshake is never completed. Because each OS has a maximum number of concurrent TCP connections that it will allow, this can quickly exhaust the ability of the system to receive new requests for TCP connections, thus preventing access to any TCP service provided by the server.(Citation: Cloudflare SynFlood)

ACK floods leverage the stateful nature of the TCP protocol. A flood of ACK packets are sent to the target. This forces the OS to search its state table for a related TCP connection that has already been established. Because the ACK packets are for connections that do not exist, the OS will have to search the entire state table to confirm that no match exists. When it is necessary to do this for a large flood of packets, the computational requirements can cause the server to become sluggish and/or unresponsive, due to the work it must do to eliminate the rogue ACK packets. This greatly reduces the resources available for providing the targeted service.(Citation: Corero SYN-ACKflood)

Location

Tactic
Impact

Technique Details

Identifier
ATTACK-T1499.001
Parent Technique
ATTACK-T1499
ATT&CK Page
View on MITRE

Tactics

Impact

Platforms

LinuxmacOSWindows

Detection

Endpoint DoS via OS Exhaustion Flood Detection Strategy

Mitigations

Filter Network Traffic: Employ network appliances and endpoint software to filter ingress, egress, and lateral network traffic. This includes protocol-based filtering, enforcing firewall rules, and blocking or restricting traffic based on predefined conditions to limit adversary movement and data exfiltration. This mitigation can be implemented through the following measures:

Ingress Traffic Filtering:

  • Use Case: Configure network firewalls to allow traffic only from authorized IP addresses to public-facing servers.
  • Implementation: Limit SSH (port 22) and RDP (port 3389) traffic to specific IP ranges.

Egress Traffic Filtering:

  • Use Case: Use firewalls or endpoint security software to block unauthorized outbound traffic to prevent data exfiltration and command-and-control (C2) communications.
  • Implementation: Block outbound traffic to known malicious IPs or regions where communication is unexpected.

Protocol-Based Filtering:

  • Use Case: Restrict the use of specific protocols that are commonly abused by adversaries, such as SMB, RPC, or Telnet, based on business needs.
  • Implementation: Disable SMBv1 on endpoints to prevent exploits like EternalBlue.

Network Segmentation:

  • Use Case: Create network segments for critical systems and restrict communication between segments unless explicitly authorized.
  • Implementation: Implement VLANs to isolate IoT devices or guest networks from core business systems.

Application Layer Filtering:

  • Use Case: Use proxy servers or Web Application Firewalls (WAFs) to inspect and block malicious HTTP/S traffic.
  • Implementation: Configure a WAF to block SQL injection attempts or other web application exploitation techniques.
SP 800-53
SP800-53-AC-3relatedvia ctid-attack-to-sp800-53
SP800-53-AC-4relatedvia ctid-attack-to-sp800-53
SP800-53-CA-7relatedvia ctid-attack-to-sp800-53
SP800-53-CM-6relatedvia ctid-attack-to-sp800-53
SP800-53-CM-7relatedvia ctid-attack-to-sp800-53
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← Back to Impact
Impact33 controls
ATTACK-T1485Data DestructionATTACK-T1485.001Lifecycle-Triggered DeletionATTACK-T1486Data Encrypted for ImpactATTACK-T1489Service StopATTACK-T1490Inhibit System RecoveryATTACK-T1491DefacementATTACK-T1491.001Internal DefacementATTACK-T1491.002External DefacementATTACK-T1495Firmware CorruptionATTACK-T1496Resource HijackingATTACK-T1496.001Compute HijackingATTACK-T1496.002Bandwidth HijackingATTACK-T1496.003SMS PumpingATTACK-T1496.004Cloud Service HijackingATTACK-T1498Network Denial of ServiceATTACK-T1498.001Direct Network FloodATTACK-T1498.002Reflection AmplificationATTACK-T1499Endpoint Denial of ServiceATTACK-T1499.001OS Exhaustion FloodATTACK-T1499.002Service Exhaustion FloodATTACK-T1499.003Application Exhaustion FloodATTACK-T1499.004Application or System ExploitationATTACK-T1529System Shutdown/RebootATTACK-T1531Account Access RemovalATTACK-T1561Disk WipeATTACK-T1561.001Disk Content WipeATTACK-T1561.002Disk Structure WipeATTACK-T1565Data ManipulationATTACK-T1565.001Stored Data ManipulationATTACK-T1565.002Transmitted Data ManipulationATTACK-T1565.003Runtime Data ManipulationATTACK-T1657Financial TheftATTACK-T1667Email Bombing