Cyber Resilience

CVE-2024-38286

DoS in Apache Tomcat 9.0.13 – 9.0.90

Published
07 November 2024
Modified
03 November 2025
CVSS Score v3.1 8.6
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H
EPSS Score 0.017 75th percentile
Risk Priority 65 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2024-38286 is a high-severity Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling (CWE-770) vulnerability in Apache Tomcat. Its CVSS base score is 8.6 (High).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Network Denial of Service (T1498); ranked in the top 25% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to AC-10 (Concurrent Session Control) and SC-6 (Resource Availability) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling vulnerability in Apache Tomcat. This issue affects Apache Tomcat: from 11.0.0-M1 through 11.0.0-M20, from 10.1.0-M1 through 10.1.24, from 9.0.13 through 9.0.89. The following versions were EOL at the time the CVE was created…

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but are known to be affected: 8.5.35 through 8.5.100 and 7.0.92 through 7.0.109. Other EOL versions may also be affected. Users are recommended to upgrade to version 11.0.0-M21, 10.1.25, or 9.0.90, which fixes the issue. Apache Tomcat, under certain configurations on any platform, allows an attacker to cause an OutOfMemoryError by abusing the TLS handshake process.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1498 Network Denial of Service Impact
Adversaries may perform Network Denial of Service (DoS) attacks to degrade or block the availability of targeted resources to users.
T1499 Endpoint Denial of Service Impact
Adversaries may perform Endpoint Denial of Service (DoS) attacks to degrade or block the availability of services to users.
T1499.003 Application Exhaustion Flood Impact
Adversaries may target resource intensive features of applications to cause a denial of service (DoS), denying availability to those applications.
T1498.001 Direct Network Flood Impact
Adversaries may attempt to cause a denial of service (DoS) by directly sending a high-volume of network traffic to a target.
T1498.002 Reflection Amplification Impact
Adversaries may attempt to cause a denial of service (DoS) by reflecting a high-volume of network traffic to a target.
T1499.001 OS Exhaustion Flood Impact
Adversaries may launch a denial of service (DoS) attack targeting an endpoint's operating system (OS).
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2024-34750Same product: Apache Tomcat
CVE-2024-27316Same product class: NAS / storage appliance
CVE-2024-21994Same product class: NAS / storage appliance
CVE-2024-54677Same product: Apache Tomcat
CVE-2024-26461Same product class: NAS / storage appliance
CVE-2024-38808Same product class: NAS / storage appliance
CVE-2023-45862Same product class: NAS / storage appliance
CVE-2024-21060Same product class: NAS / storage appliance
CVE-2025-21492Same product class: NAS / storage appliance
CVE-2024-47554Same product: Netapp Ontap Tools

Affected Assets

apache
tomcat
10.1.0, 11.0.0 · 9.0.13 — 9.0.90 · 10.1.1 — 10.1.25
netapp
ontap tools
10, 9

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)

Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)
  • 5 hardening rules · 3 OS baselines
Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)
  • V15.4.4

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

Directly enforces a hard limit on concurrent sessions, structurally preventing unbounded resource allocation.

Requires explicit allocation of resources by priority or quota, directly stopping unlimited allocation.

Imposes a limit on consecutive invalid attempts, preventing one specific class of unbounded resource consumption.

Reduces impact of resulting DoS events without preventing the underlying lack of allocation limits.

Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

PR.IR-04 mostly match
degrades

Monitoring capacity and taking action to maintain availability directly reduces unchecked resource allocation.

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

finds

Baseline comparison of CPU, memory and bandwidth usage helps surface uncontrolled resource allocations before they cause service degradation.

prevents

Capacity projections and elasticity measures ensure that allocation requests are bounded and can be throttled, reducing the window in which an attacker can force unbounded resource reservations.

mitigates

Defining retention periods and deletion schedules for backup copies prevents indefinite accumulation of data on storage media without corresponding resource-management controls.

mitigates

Architectural redundancy and automatic failover limit the impact of an attacker who forces excessive allocations, because spare capacity can absorb the load until the primary instance recovers.

none

Documented incident response procedures that include activation of continuity plans and controlled recovery help ensure that resource consumption triggered by an incident is bounded and managed rather than left unbounded.

mitigates

Mandating tested continuity procedures that preserve or replace resource-limiting controls prevents an attacker from exploiting the absence of throttling mechanisms during an outage.

Hardening callouts derived

Configuration rules from DISA STIG baselines that bear on weaknesses of the type cited by this CVE. Each rule is shown with the relationship its mapping actually records, against the CWE it was authored against. Derived via CVE→CWE over `controls_xwalks` (authoritative rows only; rows rated `none` are excluded).

Oracle Linux 8 (2 rules)
  • V-248552 OL 8 must be configured so that all network connections associated with SSH traffic terminate after becoming unresponsive. prevents CWE-770
  • V-248553 OL 8 must be configured so that all network connections associated with SSH traffic are terminated after 10 minutes of becoming unresponsive. prevents CWE-770
Oracle Linux 9 (2 rules)
  • V-271710 OL 9 must be configured so that all network connections associated with SSH traffic are terminated after 10 minutes of becoming unresponsive. prevents CWE-770
  • V-271709 OL 9 must be configured so that all network connections associated with SSH traffic terminate after becoming unresponsive. prevents CWE-770
RHEL 8 (1 rule)
  • V-230244 RHEL 8 must be configured so that all network connections associated with SSH traffic terminate after becoming unresponsive. prevents CWE-770

References