ITPEC IP April 2023 Question 37

The services of the server are interrupted — a DoS attack overloads the server so that legitimate users cannot be served.

A DoS (Denial of Service) attack floods a server with a huge number of requests or packets, using up its processing power, memory or line bandwidth. The server slows down or stops responding, and its services become unavailable: the attack damages availability. A DDoS attack sends the flood from many computers at once, often a botnet. The flood itself does not read, change or infect anything on the server.

Answer (d)

Why not others:

• •(a) — decrypting encrypted data breaks confidentiality and needs the key; flooding a server reveals nothing
• •(b) — changing the administrator password needs unauthorised access to the account, an intrusion rather than a DoS
• •(c) — a virus infection places malicious code on the server; a DoS only sends it traffic

Key rule: Classify an attack by the property it harms: DoS hits availability, eavesdropping confidentiality, tampering integrity.

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