Oxford, Cambridge and RSA (OCR) GCSE Computer Science Practice Exam

A Denial of Service (DoS) attack aims to make a network or service unavailable to its intended users by overwhelming it with a flood of traffic. This excessive traffic can come from a single source in a basic DoS attack or from multiple compromised systems in a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. The idea is to exhaust the bandwidth or resources of the target system, making it impossible for legitimate users to access the service.

In contrast, data theft involves unauthorized access to data with the intent to obtain sensitive information. SQL injection targets vulnerabilities in database applications to manipulate database queries, allowing attackers to gain access to data. A man-in-the-middle attack occurs when an attacker intercepts communications between two parties, allowing them to eavesdrop or alter the messages being exchanged. Each of these attacks has different methodologies and objectives, but only a Denial of Service attack specifically focuses on saturating network resources to disrupt service availability.