Connection Exhaustion
Connection exhaustion consumes server resources by creating more concurrent transport/application connections than the service can handle.
Mechanism
The attacker focuses on the number and lifetime of connections rather than raw bandwidth. Slow or incomplete connections can be particularly expensive.
Indicators to watch
Connection counts near limits, long-lived incomplete sessions, queue saturation, and rising latency without proportional bandwidth growth.
Concept diagram
Defensive controls
Set connection limits and timeouts, use reverse proxies, rate limits, load balancing, and resource isolation.
Recommended security control
Reverse proxy metrics / SIEM
Use synthetic load in a permitted test environment.
Defense tool
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All attack descriptions are for defensive education. Test scanning, traffic generation, interception, wireless testing, and vulnerable applications only on systems and networks you own or are explicitly authorized to assess.