What kind of cyberattack is likely occurring if an e-commerce company's website is intermittently unresponsive due to high traffic from multiple IP addresses?

• A. Malware attack
• B. Phishing attack
• C. Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack
• D. Session hijacking attack

Answer: (C)

The situation described indicates a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, which involves overwhelming a target system, in this case, an e-commerce company's website, with a flood of internet traffic. This traffic can come from various sources, often using a botnet—an array of compromised systems that send requests to the targeted server. DDoS attacks aim to disrupt the normal functioning of a website by causing it to become slow or entirely unresponsive, making it difficult or impossible for legitimate users to access the service.

In this scenario, the mention of "high traffic from multiple IP addresses" is a key indicator of a DDoS attack. Attackers often utilize multiple sources to flood the target, thereby amplifying the attack's effect and making it harder to mitigate by simply blocking a single IP address. This method distinguishes DDoS from other types of attacks, such as malware, phishing, or session hijacking, which have different mechanisms and objectives.

Malware attacks involve compromising individual systems to execute harmful actions, phishing is focused on deceiving individuals to gain sensitive information, and session hijacking aims to take control of a user's session on a legitimate service without the user’s knowledge. None of these methods directly relate to the symptoms exhibited