Which type of attack involves overwhelming a system with traffic?

A Denial-of-Service (DoS) attack is characterized by its objective to make a system or service unavailable to its intended users by overwhelming it with excessive traffic. This is typically achieved by flooding the target with illegitimate requests or traffic, which can drain resources or exceed the capacity of the system, resulting in legitimate users being unable to access the service.

The essence of a DoS attack lies in its focus on overwhelming system resources, which can lead to either complete service downtime or significantly degraded performance. Understanding the mechanics of DoS attacks is crucial for implementing effective defenses, such as traffic filtering and rate limiting, to protect systems from such disruptive actions.