What is a common effect of a successful DDoS attack?

A successful Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack aims to overwhelm a target's resources, typically a web server or network service, with an excessive volume of traffic. This saturation leads to the inability of the service to respond to legitimate requests, resulting in service unavailability for users. When a service is inaccessible, users cannot reach the website or application, which can lead to significant disruption, lost revenue, damage to reputation, and potential long-term impacts on customer trust.

While options such as stealing user credentials, unauthorized data access, or data corruption can occur in other types of attacks, they are not direct effects of a DDoS attack. Instead, the primary consequence of a DDoS is the denial of service, making it critical to recognize and defend against this specific threat by implementing appropriate mitigations and response strategies.