A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack floods a website, application, or network with traffic from many compromised sources at once, exhausting resources until legitimate users can no longer connect. DDoS is often used for extortion, distraction during a deeper intrusion, or pure disruption.
Infostealer infections can feed DDoS-adjacent harm in unexpected ways. Stolen credentials and personal data are weaponized to harass and financially drain individuals, and compromised machines can be conscripted into the botnets that launch attacks.
See a real case where stolen infostealer data fueled financial harm in our infostealer financial DDoS report.