Which type of attack can cloud bursting help alleviate?

Cloud bursting can help alleviate Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks by utilizing cloud resources to handle excessive traffic. DDoS attacks work by overwhelming a target server with a flood of incoming requests, which can cause the server to slow down or crash.

When an organization encounters a DDoS attack, it can leverage cloud bursting to temporarily expand its resources to the cloud. By offloading traffic to the cloud, the organization is better equipped to manage the surge of requests without compromising service availability. This flexibility allows for scalable resource allocation, enabling the system to maintain performance even under stress. The ability to quickly deploy additional resources in the cloud can significantly mitigate the impact of a DDoS attack, ensuring continuous service operation and protecting against downtime.

The other options represent different types of security threats that have distinct characteristics and do not directly relate to the scalability and flexibility benefits of cloud bursting. For instance, a buffer overflow exploit typically targets application vulnerabilities rather than overloading server capacity, while brute force attacks focus on password cracking rather than traffic management. XSS (Cross-Site Scripting) involves injecting malicious scripts into websites and is not addressed by resource scaling.