A flaw was found in the OpenShift Lightspeed Service, which is vulnerable to unauthenticated API request flooding. Repeated queries to non-existent endpoints inflate metrics storage and processing, consuming excessive resources. This issue can lead to monitoring system degradation, increased disk usage, and potential service unavailability. Since the issue does not require authentication, an external attacker can exhaust CPU, RAM, and disk space, impacting both application and cluster stability.
The product does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource.
Mitigation of resource exhaustion attacks requires that the target system either:
The first of these solutions is an issue in itself though, since it may allow attackers to prevent the use of the system by a particular valid user. If the attacker impersonates the valid user, they may be able to prevent the user from accessing the server in question.
The second solution is simply difficult to effectively institute – and even when properly done, it does not provide a full solution. It simply makes the attack require more resources on the part of the attacker.