ITPEC FE Morning April 2019 Question 41

Denial of Service (DoS) Attack — An attack that prevents legitimate users from accessing services

A Denial of Service (DoS) attack floods a server or network with excessive requests, exhausting its resources and making it unavailable to legitimate users. The key characteristic is blocking access, not stealing data.

• •Correct answer: b) Denial of Service — directly prevents users from accessing their accounts by overwhelming the system.

Why not others:
- a) Brute force — attempts to guess passwords by trying many combinations; it aims to break into an account, not block access.
- c) Man in the middle — intercepts communication between two parties to eavesdrop or alter data; users can still access services.
- d) Sniffing — passively captures network traffic to read unencrypted data; it does not disrupt access.

Key rule: If the question mentions preventing access or service unavailability, think DoS/DDoS.

AI-generated — may contain errors