210-250 · Question #161
What best describes a DoS attack?
The correct answer is A. attempts to consume all of a critical computer or network resource in order to make it unavailable. A Denial of Service (DoS) attack aims to exhaust system or network resources so legitimate users cannot access the targeted service.
Question
What best describes a DoS attack?
Options
- Aattempts to consume all of a critical computer or network resource in order to make it unavailable
- Bposes as legitimate software or email attachment in order to launch a malicious attack when
- Ccan steal data such as user names and passwords without the user realizing that they have been
- Drarely seen because DoS attacks are extremely difficult to engineer and almost impossible to
How the community answered
(44 responses)- A86% (38)
- B2% (1)
- C7% (3)
- D5% (2)
Why each option
A Denial of Service (DoS) attack aims to exhaust system or network resources so legitimate users cannot access the targeted service.
A DoS attack works by overwhelming a target with requests or traffic that consume critical resources - such as bandwidth, CPU, memory, or connection tables - until the system can no longer serve legitimate users, which is the defining characteristic of this attack class.
This describes a Trojan horse, which disguises itself as legitimate software or an email attachment to execute malicious code, not a resource exhaustion attack.
This describes spyware or credential-stealing malware that silently captures user data, which is a different attack objective than denying service.
DoS attacks are common and relatively straightforward to execute using widely available tools, making this statement factually incorrect.
Concept tested: Denial of Service attack definition and resource exhaustion
Source: https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/news/understanding-denial-service-attacks
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