What type of attack is characterized by overwhelming a system with excessive traffic?

A Denial of Service (DoS) attack is characterized by overwhelming a system with excessive traffic to the point where it can no longer respond to legitimate requests. The goal of a DoS attack is to disrupt the services of a host connected to the Internet, often by flooding it with incoming requests that consume resources, such as bandwidth and server capacity. This can lead to slow performance or complete unavailability of the target system for legitimate users.

In the context of cybersecurity, this type of attack can be particularly damaging to businesses and organizations that rely on online services, as it can lead to downtime, loss of revenue, and damage to reputation. Attackers may use a single source for a DoS attack or coordinate multiple systems in what is known as a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, in which the traffic comes from numerous compromised systems, making it even more challenging to defend against.

Understanding DoS attacks is crucial for IT professionals, as they need to implement adequate security measures, including rate limiting, firewalls, and traffic analysis, to protect their networks from this type of threat.