CompTIA CASP+ Practice Test

What type of attack is an ecommerce application vulnerable to if it does not track incoming connections properly?

1. Cross-Site Scripting Attack

2. Denial of Service Attack

3. SQL Injection Attack

4. Man-in-the-Middle Attack

The correct answer is: Denial of Service Attack

An ecommerce application that does not properly track incoming connections can be particularly susceptible to a Denial of Service (DoS) attack. This type of attack aims to make a service unavailable to its intended users by overwhelming the application with a flood of illegitimate requests, consuming its resources and potentially causing legitimate users to be unable to access the site. When an application fails to monitor or manage incoming connections effectively, it can become a target for attackers who generate massive volumes of traffic. This results in the application being unable to handle genuine user requests, leading to service downtime. Therefore, the vulnerability arises from inadequate connection handling and management, which can easily be exploited through DoS tactics, causing significant disruption to ecommerce operations. In contrast, the other types of attacks listed, like Cross-Site Scripting and SQL Injection, primarily exploit vulnerabilities in input validation and data handling rather than connection management issues. A Man-in-the-Middle attack involves intercepting communication between parties, which wouldn't typically relate directly to the application's connection tracking capabilities.