**What does the acronym DDOS mean in cybersecurity threats?**
DDOS stands for Distributed Denial of Service, a malicious attack aimed at overwhelming a target server, service, or network by flooding it with excessive traffic from multiple sources. This results in the disruption of services, making them unavailable to legitimate users. DDOS attacks pose significant threats to organizations, often causing financial losses and damaging reputations. Protecting against such attacks requires robust security measures and prepared incident response strategies.