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Interview question · Network Security & Protocols

Walk through denial-of-service attacks by layer, from volumetric floods to application abuse, and the defence for each.

A 2 Tbps flood and one expensive API call per second are both denial of service. The answer that scores matches each attack to the place where it can be stopped, and knows which ones only a provider can absorb.

mediumNewPreparation tags: Amazon, Google, MicrosoftUpdated Nov 2026

A 2 Tbps flood and one expensive API call per second are both denial of service. The answer that scores matches each attack to the place where it can be stopped, and knows which ones only a provider can absorb.

Make your first attempt

What would you say before reading the answer?

  1. 01 State the assumptions your answer depends on.
  2. 02 Explain the mechanism and choose a control.
  3. 03 Name a condition that would change your decision.

The worked answer includes an approach, scoring criteria and follow-up questions. Compare the reasoning with your own.

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What if · the follow-ups in this answer

The answer works through 6 follow-ups like an interviewer would

A public website suffers outages from different kinds of floods over a month, and the team wants a layered defence.

  1. How do you handle volumetric attacks?
  2. How do you handle protocol attacks?
  3. How do you handle application attacks?
  4. Why protect the origin's address?
  5. How do you prepare operationally?
  6. How would you defend the site?

Each rung has a nudge, a model answer, the principle that carries over and the weak answer to avoid. Premium opens every answer and ladder.

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