ISC2 CC Security Principles Practice Question
Which of the following is a control that can reduce the risk of a DDoS attack?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates choose 'Access control lists' because ACLs sound like a security control, but they are ineffective against distributed attacks with spoofed or rotating source IPs — load balancing is the control that actually absorbs and distributes the flood.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Load balancing
Load balancing helps mitigate DDoS attacks by distributing incoming traffic across multiple servers, preventing any single server from being overwhelmed by a flood of requests. This increases the capacity and resilience of the infrastructure, making it harder for an attacker to exhaust resources. While not a complete DDoS solution, load balancing is a foundational control that reduces the impact of volumetric and application-layer attacks.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Access control lists
Why it's wrong here
ACLs filter traffic by source, destination, port or protocol, so they cannot absorb or disperse the volumetric floods a DDoS attack generates; the traffic still reaches the link. They are tempting because they genuinely restrict access to specific services, which is the right control for limiting who may reach a management interface.
- ✓
Load balancing
Why this is correct
Load balancing distributes incoming traffic across multiple servers, preventing any single node from being overwhelmed during a volumetric flood. This directly satisfies the stem's requirement to reduce DDoS risk by absorbing and spreading attack traffic, maintaining availability even when request volume spikes far beyond what one server could handle alone.
- ✗
Encryption
Why it's wrong here
Encryption protects data confidentiality in transit or at rest; it does not distinguish legitimate requests from attack traffic, so floods still consume bandwidth and resources. It is tempting as a general security hardening measure, but DDoS resilience comes from filtering, rate limiting and scrubbing capacity.
- ✗
Digital signatures
Why it's wrong here
Digital signatures provide integrity and origin authentication for messages; they do not absorb or filter volumetric traffic, so they cannot mitigate a flood. They are tempting because they strengthen trust in communications, but DDoS mitigation requires traffic scrubbing or rate limiting at the network edge.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Access Control Fundamentals
Key term
Risk
Risk is the possibility that an event or action will negatively affect an organization's ability to achieve its goals, often measured in terms of likelihood and impact.
Key term
Impact
Impact is the measure of the potential damage or harm that a risk event could cause to an organization's assets, operations, or reputation.
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JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official ISC2 exam blueprint
This CC practice question is part of Courseiva's free ISC2 certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the CC exam.