TechKnowSurge
CompTIA Security+ 3.4 CompTIA Security+ 1.2
InteractiveSecurityFree

What Took It Down?

Ten outages, five threats. Sort each one by the threat to availability that caused it.

⚑ Complete this interactive to capture a CTF flag worth 5 points.

About this interactive

The lesson lists five things that take services down. Attack: a threat agent sets out to make the service unavailable, as in a denial-of-service attack or ransomware. Utility disruption: something the organization buys from outside, such as power or internet service, stops arriving. Failure: hardware or software breaks on its own. Destruction: fire, flood, earthquake or another disaster physically wrecks the site. Human error: the people maintaining the systems cause the outage, often with a misconfiguration. The lesson finds this the most common cause of all. To sort a card, ask what started the outage, not what it damaged.

What you'll learn

Aligned to

CompTIA Security+
3.4 Explain the importance of resilience and recovery in security architecture.
1.2 Summarize fundamental security concepts.

Key terms

Availability
The assurance that systems and data are accessible and operational when needed by authorized users.
Downtime
The period during which a system, service, or component is unavailable or non-operational; it is measured against uptime targets defined in service agreements.
Denial of Service
DoS
An attack that floods a system or network with traffic to make it unavailable to legitimate users.

Topics

Interactive Categorize

About TechKnowSurge

TechKnowSurge builds IT and cybersecurity professionals through hands-on, concept-first training built around real understanding — not memorization. Free interactive tools, structured programs, and 25+ years of real-world experience, all in one place.

Explore free tools and programs →