What characterizes a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack?

A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is characterized primarily by its method of overwhelming a targeted system with an excessive volume of traffic, rendering it unable to respond to legitimate requests. In a DDoS scenario, multiple compromised computers or devices, often part of a botnet, simultaneously flood the target with traffic, which can lead to service outages or significant degradation in performance. This attack disrupts normal operations by exhausting the resources of the system, which may include bandwidth, processing power, or memory, effectively denying access to legitimate users.

Other options describe different kinds of attacks or focuses that do not align with the primary characteristic of a DDoS attack. For instance, while corrupting data can be a focus of various cyber-attacks, it does not specifically relate to the denial of service aspect. Phishing attacks concentrate on tricking users into revealing sensitive information rather than overwhelming a system with traffic. Lastly, targeting physical assets generally pertains to more traditional forms of attack, such as sabotage, and does not connect with the concept of traffic-based denial of service exploits.