Fix Unrestricted Resource Consumption in Meteor
Meteor's DDP protocol and reactive data model are prime targets for resource exhaustion. Unbounded publications and unthrottled methods allow attackers to trigger Out-of-Memory (OOM) errors or freeze the Node.js event loop. If you aren't enforcing limits on your cursors or rate-limiting your DDP messages, your app is a sitting duck for DoS.
The Vulnerable Pattern
// Server-side: Vulnerable Publication and Method Meteor.publish('allLogs', function() { // VULNERABLE: No limit enforced. An attacker can force the server to fetch and serialize millions of docs. return Logs.find({}); });
Meteor.methods({ ‘processData’: function(input) { // VULNERABLE: No rate limiting. Attacker can spam this expensive call to spike CPU. return heavyComputation(input); } });
The Secure Implementation
To mitigate Unrestricted Resource Consumption, you must implement three layers of defense. First, enforce hard limits on all MongoDB cursors within publications; never allow a client to request an unbounded dataset. Second, use 'check()' to validate all input types, preventing ReDoS or unexpected data structures. Finally, use 'DDPRateLimiter' to throttle DDP method calls and subscriptions. Meteor does not rate-limit by default, so you must explicitly define rules to prevent attackers from flooding the server with expensive operations.
import { DDPRateLimiter } from 'meteor/ddp-rate-limiter'; import { check, Match } from 'meteor/check';// 1. Secure Publication with hard limits Meteor.publish(‘allLogs’, function(limit) { check(limit, Match.Integer); const MAX_LIMIT = 100; return Logs.find({}, { limit: Math.min(limit, MAX_LIMIT), fields: { sensitiveField: 0 } }); });
// 2. Secure Method with Rate Limiting const PROCESS_METHOD = ‘processData’; Meteor.methods({ [PROCESS_METHOD]: function(input) { check(input, String); return heavyComputation(input); } });
// Define rate limit: 5 requests per 1 second per connection DDPRateLimiter.addRule({ type: ‘method’, name: PROCESS_METHOD, connectionId: () => true }, 5, 1000);
Your Meteor API
might be exposed to Unrestricted Resource Consumption
74% of Meteor apps fail this check. Hackers use automated scanners to find this specific flaw. Check your codebase before they do.
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