Denial of Service (DoS) Affecting org.owasp.esapi:esapi package, versions [0,]

org.owasp.esapi:esapi is an OWASP project to create simple strong security controls for every web platform.

Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Denial of Service (DoS) in the HTTPUtilities.getFileUploads and ESAPIWebApplicationFirewallFilter methods, by uploading large numbers of files in a single upload or in a series of uploads.

Note:

If you are using any of the HTTPUtilities.getFileUploads methods, you are potentially affected.

Upgrading to version 2.5.2.0 addresses the issue described in CVE-2023-24998 but to be fully protected the maintainer recommends taking additional prevention steps as described below.

1. Deploying an external WAF or other suitable DoS protection.

2. Adding additional defenses to user's code using HTTPUtilities.getFileUpload, such as requiring prior authentication.

3. Restricting how much content can be uploaded per user per day or per hour.

4. disabling commons-fileupload altogether by excluding it in the pom.xml, e.g.

<exclusions>
  <exclusion>
    <groupId>commons-fileupload</groupId>
    <artifactId>commons-fileupload</artifactId>
  </exclusion>
</exclusions>

Denial of Service (DoS) describes a family of attacks, all aimed at making a system inaccessible to its intended and legitimate users.

Unlike other vulnerabilities, DoS attacks usually do not aim at breaching security. Rather, they are focused on making websites and services unavailable to genuine users resulting in downtime.

One popular Denial of Service vulnerability is DDoS (a Distributed Denial of Service), an attack that attempts to clog network pipes to the system by generating a large volume of traffic from many machines.

When it comes to open source libraries, DoS vulnerabilities allow attackers to trigger such a crash or crippling of the service by using a flaw either in the application code or from the use of open source libraries.

Two common types of DoS vulnerabilities:

• High CPU/Memory Consumption- An attacker sending crafted requests that could cause the system to take a disproportionate amount of time to process. For example, commons-fileupload:commons-fileupload.

• Crash - An attacker sending crafted requests that could cause the system to crash. For Example, npm ws package

• ESAPI Documentation