CVE-2023-48834 in Car Rental
Summary
by MITRE • 12/07/2023
A lack of rate limiting in pjActionAjaxSend in Car Rental v3.0 allows attackers to cause resource exhaustion.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 03/02/2026
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2023-48834 resides within the Car Rental v3.0 web application, specifically in the pjActionAjaxSend component which handles asynchronous ajax requests. This flaw represents a critical security weakness that directly impacts the application's ability to manage concurrent user requests and system resources. The absence of proper rate limiting mechanisms creates an environment where malicious actors can exploit the system through excessive request volumes, potentially leading to significant operational disruptions and resource depletion.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability stems from the lack of request throttling or rate limiting controls within the pjActionAjaxSend functionality. This component likely processes various ajax requests related to car rental operations such as booking confirmations, availability checks, or user account management. Without proper rate limiting, an attacker can submit numerous rapid requests that consume system resources including cpu cycles, memory allocation, and database connections. The vulnerability aligns with CWE-770, which describes allocation of resources without limits or throttling, and represents a classic example of a resource exhaustion attack pattern.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple service disruption to encompass potential data integrity concerns and system stability issues. When an attacker exploits this weakness, they can cause the application to become unresponsive or crash entirely, affecting legitimate users who attempt to perform rental transactions. The resource exhaustion can manifest as database connection pools becoming depleted, memory allocation failures, or cpu starvation that prevents the system from processing legitimate user requests. This type of attack falls under the ATT&CK technique T1499.004 for resource exhaustion and can effectively render the rental system unusable for legitimate customers while providing attackers with opportunities for further exploitation or data exfiltration.
Mitigation strategies for CVE-2023-48834 should focus on implementing robust rate limiting mechanisms at multiple layers of the application architecture. The immediate solution involves configuring request rate limits within the pjActionAjaxSend component to restrict the number of requests per user or ip address within a specific time window. This approach should be complemented by implementing circuit breaker patterns that detect and temporarily block suspicious request patterns. Additionally, the application should incorporate monitoring and logging capabilities to detect unusual request volumes that may indicate exploitation attempts. Security controls should also include implementing api rate limiting at the web server level and employing intrusion detection systems that can identify and alert on potential resource exhaustion attacks. The implementation should follow industry best practices for rate limiting as specified in OWASP API Security Top 10 and should be designed to maintain acceptable performance for legitimate users while effectively blocking malicious request floods.