CompSci trio describe theoretical Denial-of-Wallet attack
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If you want to stick it to a startup that relies on serverless infrastructure, you may be able to inflict $40,000 in financial damage every month with a modest 1,000-node botnet.
That estimate comes from computer-science boffins Daniel Kelly, Frank Glavin, and Enda Barrett at National University of Ireland, Galway, in their recent paper, "Denial of Wallet – Defining a Looming Threat to Serverless Computing."
Denial of Wallet, or DoW, attacks aren't actually a widely recognized threat – as the authors observe, "No DoW attacks have been publicly recorded." But they have been reported as a consequence of deploying subpar code and concern about the possibility has been bandied about for the past few years.