CAPEC Definitions

    CAPEC Definitions / CAPEC-25

    CAPEC-25: Forced Deadlock

    The adversary triggers and exploits a deadlock condition in the target software to cause a denial of service. A deadlock can occur when two or more competing actions are waiting for each other to finish, and thus neither ever does. Deadlock conditions can be difficult to detect.

    Severity:High
    Possibility:Low

    Extended Description

    No Extended Description.

    Mitigations

    Use known algorithm to avoid deadlock condition (for instance non-blocking synchronization algorithms).

    For competing actions, use well-known libraries which implement synchronization.

    Relationships with other CAPECs

    No related CAPECs found.

    Prerequisites

    The target host has a deadlock condition. There are four conditions for a deadlock to occur, known as the Coffman conditions. [REF-101]

    The target host exposes an API to the user.

    Related Weaknesses

    CWE-412: Unrestricted Externally Accessible Lock

    CWE-567: Unsynchronized Access to Shared Data in a Multithreaded Context

    CWE-662: Improper Synchronization

    CWE-667: Improper Locking

    CWE-833: Deadlock

    CWE-1322: Use of Blocking Code in Single-threaded, Non-blocking Context