What is a common symptom that may indicate a potential DDoS attack?

A large, constant spike in bandwidth consumption is a clear indicator of a potential Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. During a DDoS attack, multiple compromised systems flood a target system with traffic, overwhelming its resources and impacting its ability to function correctly. This results in a noticeable increase in bandwidth usage as incoming requests surge beyond typical levels. Monitoring bandwidth can help network administrators detect unusual patterns that signal an attack, allowing for proactive measures to mitigate the impact.

While regular system reboots, unexpected application crashes, and login issues can also be symptoms of various network or application problems, they do not specifically point to a DDoS attack as directly or consistently as an abnormal spike in bandwidth. These issues could arise from software bugs, hardware failures, or misconfigurations rather than a coordinated effort to overwhelm a system's resources. Hence, the significant and sustained increase in bandwidth consumption is a more definitive symptom associated with DDoS activity.