312-50V11 · Question #695
How does a denial-of-service attack work?
The correct answer is A. A hacker prevents a legitimate user (or group of users) from accessing a service. A denial-of-service (DoS) attack works by overwhelming or blocking a service so that legitimate users cannot access it.
Question
How does a denial-of-service attack work?
Options
- AA hacker prevents a legitimate user (or group of users) from accessing a service
- BA hacker uses every character, word, or letter he or she can think of to defeat authentication
- CA hacker tries to decipher a password by using a system, which subsequently crashes the
- DA hacker attempts to imitate a legitimate user by confusing a computer or even another person
How the community answered
(28 responses)- A89% (25)
- B4% (1)
- C7% (2)
Why each option
A denial-of-service (DoS) attack works by overwhelming or blocking a service so that legitimate users cannot access it.
A DoS attack floods a target system, server, or network with excessive traffic or requests, exhausting resources and rendering the service unavailable to legitimate users. The defining characteristic is denial of access - not data theft or credential compromise. This can be achieved through bandwidth exhaustion, resource starvation, or exploiting protocol weaknesses.
Trying every possible character or word combination to defeat authentication describes a brute-force attack, not a denial-of-service attack.
Crashing a system while attempting to decipher a password describes a side effect of certain brute-force or fuzzing attacks, which is distinct from the intentional service disruption of a DoS attack.
Imitating a legitimate user or confusing a system or person to gain access describes impersonation or spoofing, which is unrelated to denial-of-service.
Concept tested: Definition and mechanism of DoS attacks
Source: https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/news/understanding-denial-service-attacks
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