Palo Alto Networks (PANW) Certified Cybersecurity Entry-level Technician (PCCET) Practice Exam

A server that has a bug that lets a single transaction take it offline is susceptible to which type of attack?

1. Denial of Service (DoS)

2. Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS)

3. Trojan horses

4. Worms

The correct answer is: Denial of Service (DoS)

A server that can go offline due to a single harmful transaction is specifically vulnerable to a Denial of Service (DoS) attack. In a DoS attack, the goal is to make a service unavailable to its intended users by overwhelming it or exploiting its weaknesses, such as a bug that crashes the server with a specific transaction. This type of attack can be executed by an individual or a script that sends malicious requests until the server cannot handle them anymore, leading to downtime. In contrast, while a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack also aims to disrupt service, it involves multiple systems working together to flood a target with traffic, typically requiring more complexity and coordination. Trojan horses and worms are types of malware that typically aim to infiltrate, corrupt, or spread within networks or systems, rather than specifically targeting the availability of a service through exploitation of a vulnerability. Thus, in this context, the nature of the described server vulnerability aligns closely with the characteristics of a DoS attack.