15 lines
1.1 KiB
Plaintext
15 lines
1.1 KiB
Plaintext
A server that faces a memory exhaustion situation can become unstable. The exact impact will depend on how the
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affected application is deployed and how well the hosting server configuration is hardened.
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In the worst case, when the application is deployed in an uncontained environment, directly on its host system, the
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memory exhaustion will affect the whole hosting server. The server's operating system might start killing arbitrary
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memory-intensive processes, including the main application or other sensitive ones. This will result in a general
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operating failure, also known as a Denial of Service (DoS).
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In cases where the application is deployed in a virtualized or otherwise contained environment, or where memory usage
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limits are in place, the consequences are limited to the vulnerable application only. In that case, other processes and
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applications hosted on the same server may keep on running without perturbation. The mainly affected application will
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still stop working properly.
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In general, that kind of DoS attack can have severe financial consequences. They are particularly important when the
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affected systems are business-critical. |