Identifying rate-limiting mechanisms

You just learned several ways to trigger DoS attacks against an API endpoint. We even sent a trivial but powerful DDoS wave of packets that made our target unable to handle them feasibly. The first option to protect against such types of threats is rate-limiting the traffic, also called throttling. For more information, see the link in the Further reading section.

Identifying rate-limiting mechanisms within an API is an essential aspect of both security and usability assessments. Rate limiting is designed to prevent abuse by limiting the number of requests a user can make in each period. It helps mitigate various attacks, such as brute force or DDoS, by capping the action frequency. This is achieved by applying a policy. This policy ensures that servers are not overwhelmed by too many requests at once, which could degrade service for others or lead to server failure. Rate limiting can be based on several factors, including IP addresses, user...