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denial-of-service

American  
[dih-nahy-uhl-uhv-sur-vis] / dɪˈnaɪ əl əvˈsɜr vɪs /

adjective

Digital Technology.
  1. pertaining to or being an incident in which a computer or computer network is disabled, disrupting access or service.

    a website hit by a denial-of-service attack; unintentional denial-of-service problems.


Other Word Forms

  • denial of service noun

Etymology

Origin of denial-of-service

First recorded in 1970–75

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

"The analysis shows that it is a denial-of-service attack," a parliament spokesperson said.

From Reuters • May 3, 2023

The attacks followed a call by a shadowy group of pro-Russian hackers that calls itself Killnet for coordinated denial-of-service attacks on the targets.

From Seattle Times • Oct. 10, 2022

It’s not entirely clear how far-reaching the damage of the attacks has been, but the combination of ransomware and distributed denial-of-service seems to have had a fairly profound impact on day-to-day life in the country.

From Slate • Sep. 12, 2022

Mr. Putin’s remarks to the economic forum were delayed by over an hour after the Kremlin cited “large-scale” distributed denial-of-service cyberattacks on the conference’s computer systems.

From New York Times • Jun. 17, 2022

The Ukrainians adapted to denial-of-service attacks that rendered some websites unavailable by switching networks and getting protection from companies based elsewhere.

From Washington Post • Mar. 4, 2022