THREAT‑WATCH
Glossary
DDoS Attack
A Distributed Denial-of-Service attack floods a system with traffic from many sources at once, making it unavailable to legitimate users.
DDoS attacks typically use a botnet to generate overwhelming traffic volume, or exploit protocol weaknesses to consume server resources with relatively little attacker traffic (amplification attacks). Unlike most cyberattacks, the goal usually isn't data theft, it's disruption and downtime, often used as a distraction to cover a separate intrusion, or as extortion leverage.