Which term creates a flood of traffic across the network and causes switches to become non-responsive, creating a self-imposed denial of service attack?

• A. Switching Loop
• B. Switch
• C. MAC Flood
• D. CAM Table

Answer: (A)

Switching loop describes a condition where there are multiple active paths between switches and no mechanism to block frames from circulating. When a loop exists, frames—especially broadcasts and unknown destinations—keep being forwarded around the network, creating a storm that rapidly floods traffic across links. As traffic escalates, switches become overwhelmed, bandwidth is wasted on duplicate frames, and devices stop responding to new traffic. This self-imposed denial of service happens because the loop causes continuous forwarding rather than a single, intended path. Switches rely on spanning tree protocols to prevent this by blocking one of the redundant paths; without that protection, the loop can form and render the network non-responsive. While a MAC flood can also cause flooding by overloading a switch’s CAM table and forcing broad broadcasts, the term that best captures the described continual, self-inflicted flood due to misrouting is the switching loop.