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This document normatively updates RFC 3261, the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), to address a security vulnerability identified in SIP proxy behavior. This vulnerability enables an attack against SIP networks where a small number of legitimate, even authorized, SIP requests can stimulate massive amounts of proxy-to-proxy traffic.

This document strengthens loop-detection requirements on SIP proxies when they fork requests (that is, forward a request to more than one destination). It also corrects and clarifies the description of the loop-detection algorithm such proxies are required to implement. Additionally, this document defines a Max-Breadth mechanism for limiting the number of concurrent branches pursued for any given request.