<human>: What is a "distributed denial of service attack"?
<bot>: A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack is an attempt to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by overloading it with requests from multiple sources. The attacker usually aims to take down the target server or network, making it inaccessible for legitimate users. This type of attack is often used as a form of protest or extortion, and can be very disruptive to normal operations.