AP® Cybersecurity glossary
Denial of service (DoS)
Also called: DoS, DoS attack
An attack that makes a system or resource unavailable to authorized users.
Appears in the course and exam description (CED): 3.1.A.43.1.B.13.1.C.1
Why it matters in Unit 3
A DoS attack threatens availability. Unit 3 examples include a smurf attack and flooding a network that has no firewall or a badly configured one.
Example
An adversary floods a school portal with so many requests that students cannot log in to submit homework.
Learn it properly, with a checkpoint 3.1 Network Vulnerabilities and Attacks