Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) Cybersecurity Practice Test

What kind of attacks can bots carry out once computers are infected?

1. Social Engineering Attacks

2. Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Attacks

3. Virus Spreading

4. Phishing Attacks

The correct answer is: Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Attacks

Bots, once they have infected computers, can be used to carry out Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. In a DDoS attack, a network of compromised systems—often referred to as a botnet—floods a target, such as a website or online service, with an overwhelming amount of traffic. This excessive traffic is aimed at overwhelming the target’s resources, causing it to slow down significantly or become entirely unavailable to legitimate users. DDoS attacks exploit the coordinated effort of multiple bots to increase the effectiveness of the attack and can target specific vulnerabilities of the service under attack. The distributed nature of botnets allows attackers to launch these assaults from many locations simultaneously, making them harder to mitigate and defend against compared to attacks originating from a single source. Understanding the role of bots in executing DDoS attacks is crucial in cybersecurity, as it highlights the need for robust defenses and traffic management strategies to protect networked services from such threats.