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title: ha.ckers.org web application security lab - Archive » Exaggerating Timing Attack Results Via GET Flooding
description: "Prompted by a forum post from Super-Friez, RSnake proposes flooding GET requests not for bandwidth but to load the server, ideally against a URL that hits the database, so a timing attack's signal grows. A difference normally measured in microseconds becomes seconds, turning an unusable timing oracle into a practical one."
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# ha.ckers.org web application security lab - Archive » Exaggerating Timing Attack Results Via GET Flooding

**ha.ckers.org web application security lab - Archive » Exaggerating Timing Attack Results Via GET Flooding** - Author not stated, ha.ckers.org.

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- Original: <http://ha.ckers.org/blog/20071209/exaggerating-timing-attack-results-via-get-flooding/>
- Preserved from: http://ha.ckers.org/blog/20071209/exaggerating-timing-attack-results-via-get-flooding/ (stored) on 2026-08-09
- Capture timestamp: 20080526013843
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ha.ckers.org web application security lab - Archive » Exaggerating Timing Attack Results Via GET Flooding

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## [Exaggerating Timing Attack Results Via GET Flooding](http://ha.ckers.org/blog/20071209/exaggerating-timing-attack-results-via-get-flooding/)

A post by [Super-Friez](http://sla.ckers.org/forum/read.php?14,13943) got me thinking of an actual useful application for GET request flooding this evening. Normally we only think of GET requests as a binary thing - one at a time or flooding. But what if we only launched enough GET requests with the intention of impacting server load, not bandwidth latency. So picking the right URL would be critical here (DB impacts, most likely).

When you found the right URL, launching a GET request flood against the server could seriously delay certain types of requests (especially if they must touch a database two times versus one time, for instance - if the DB was part of the flooding). Suddenly something that is normally the difference of a few microseconds could be the difference of seconds. Who cares? Because I’m always curious if there are any practical applications in hacking for DoS and this appears to be one of them - at least in theory.

  This entry was posted on Sunday, December 9th, 2007 at 9:04 pm and is filed under [Webappsec](http://ha.ckers.org/blog/category/webappsec/). You can leave a response as well.