Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Jun 1, 2026

Algorithmic complexity attack

An algorithmic complexity attack (ACA) is a form of attack in which an attacker sends a pattern of requests to a computer system that triggers the worst-case performance of the algorithms it uses. In turn, this may exhaust the resources the system uses. Examples of such attacks include ReDOS, zip bombs and exponential entity expansion attacks.

Last revised
Jun 1, 2026
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An algorithmic complexity attack (ACA) is a form of attack in which an attacker sends a pattern of requests to a computer system that triggers the worst-case performance of the algorithms it uses. In turn, this may exhaust the resources the system uses.1 Examples of such attacks include ReDOS,2 zip bombs and exponential entity expansion attacks.

References

References

  1. Crosby, Scott A.; Wallach, Dan S. (2003). "Denial of Service via Algorithmic Complexity Attacks". Proceedings of the 12th USENIX Security Symposium.
  2. "Regular expression Denial of Service - ReDoS | OWASP Foundation". owasp.org. Retrieved 2023-10-17.