Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) Practice Exam 2026 – All-in-One Guide to Mastering Your Certification!

A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is characterized by its nature of utilizing multiple systems to simultaneously target and overwhelm a single system, service, or network. This coordinated approach makes it significantly more challenging to defend against compared to a traditional denial of service (DoS) attack, which typically originates from a single source. In a DDoS attack, the attacker often employs a network of compromised devices, known as a botnet, to flood the target with excessive amounts of traffic or requests. This saturation can lead to service unavailability, degradation, or a complete outage for legitimate users.

The other options do not accurately capture the essence of a DDoS attack. For example, while confidentiality of user data is a concern in cybersecurity, a DDoS attack primarily focuses on service availability rather than compromising data. Additionally, a centralized attack method does not align with the decentralized nature of a DDoS attack, which operates from multiple sources. Lastly, describing a DDoS attack as a low-impact, minor disturbance minimizes the significant threats it poses to businesses and services, which can lead to substantial downtime and financial loss. Therefore, the defining characteristic of a DDoS attack lies in the coordinated assault from multiple systems aimed at overpower