MITRE ATLAS 2026.09 / technique reference
AML.T0034
Cost Harvesting
MITRE source definition
Adversaries may deliberately drive a victim's AI services beyond normal operating capacity with the intent of increasing the cost of services. This may be achieved via high-volume, low-complexity queries ([Excessive Queries](/techniques/AML.T0034.000)) or low-volume, high-complexity queries ([Resource-Intensive Queries](/techniques/AML.T0034.001)). In Generative AI or Agentic AI systems, adversarial prompts may be introduced into the model's context to cause ([Agentic Resource Consumption](/techniques/AML.T0034.002)).
Unlike resource hijacking, where adversaries may leverage AI resources such as computational, memory, or storage for their own purposes, cost harvesting focuses on resource-centric pressure to a service to ultimately cause financial harm to the victim.
Cost Harvesting is especially relevant for cloud-hosted, pay-per-use AI/ML platforms (e.g., LLM APIs, generative image services, vision-language pipelines). By manipulating request volume or request complexity, an attacker can: - Inflate the victim's compute or storage consumption, leading to higher operational costs. - Trigger autoscaling mechanisms that provision additional resources, further amplifying cost and exposure. - Saturate internal queues or GPU/TPU pipelines, causing latency spikes, request throttling, or outright service unavailability for legitimate users.
Source modified 2026-05-27. Reproduced from the pinned ATLAS release; inline technique links resolve to local reference pages.
Parent, sub-techniques and ATT&CK references
Source-backed defensive context
MITRE mitigations
- AML.M0004 Limit AI Service Query Volume and Rate
- AML.M0019 Control Access to AI Models and Data in Production
- AML.M0035 AI Red Team
- AML.M0036 Limit AI Workload Resource Consumption
MITRE case studies
No explicit relationship in this pinned source.
These are explicit source relationships, not independently reproduced incidents or validated detection coverage.
Simulation and telemetry boundary
This is a technique reference page, not a runnable simulation. No ATLAS-specific telemetry mapping, local attack execution or detector validation is asserted. MITRE maturity describes its source evidence, not a 1200km lab result.
For broader context—not technique-specific control mappings—see AI Security, AI Security Course, and detection-validation methodology.
Provenance and attribution
Immutable MITRE ATLAS source · Import provenance · Attribution and transformation notice · Apache License 2.0
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No explicit relationship in this pinned source.