A network administrator notices web pages are experiencing long load times. After confirming it's not a routing issue, which condition is the router MOST likely experiencing?

When web pages experience long load times and routing issues have been ruled out, one of the most likely conditions affecting the router is resource exhaustion. This condition arises when a device does not have enough resources—such as CPU, memory, or bandwidth—to handle the current number of requests or the amount of data being processed.

Resource exhaustion can occur due to various reasons, including a high volume of legitimate traffic or the presence of malicious activity, which overwhelms the router's capacity to manage connections effectively. The symptoms of resource exhaustion often manifest as slow response times for users accessing the web, leading to long load times.

A Denial of Service (DDoS) attack could lead to similar symptoms; however, identifying it requires specific evidence of attack patterns and traffic analysis that goes beyond merely observing load times. This makes resource exhaustion a more general, yet plausible condition under the given circumstances.

While a memory leak and buffer overflow are specific types of programming errors that can affect system performance, they are less likely to be the immediate cause of slow loading times compared to resource exhaustion. This is because they typically result in crashes or erratic behavior rather than simple slowdowns. In summary, resource exhaustion is the most fitting explanation for the observed long load times, as it encompasses