What is a common strategy used in denial of service attacks to disrupt network operations?

Flooding a system with traffic is a widely recognized strategy used in denial of service (DoS) attacks. This method involves overwhelming a network, service, or server with a massive volume of requests, rendering it unable to process legitimate traffic effectively. When a system is flooded, it can become slow, crash, or completely halt its operations, causing significant disruption.

This tactic capitalizes on the limitations of network resources, effectively drowning out normal requests and impacting overall availability. The goal is to deny legitimate users access to resources or services by overwhelming the system with excessive, often malicious, network traffic.

The other strategies mentioned, such as intercepting communications or identifying open ports, are more aligned with information gathering or security breaches rather than directly causing disruption to network services. Overloading program buffers, while a genuine concern related to security vulnerabilities, typically targets specific applications rather than the network operation as a whole, and is more associated with exploitation than a denial of service approach.