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denial-of-service attack

Cultural  
  1. Often spread by e-mail viruses, these are deliberately planned attacks on a companies or organizations, Web sites, or servers. They aim to shut down access to a site or key server by flooding it with massive requests, placing such great demands on the targeted information infrastructure that no one else can gain access to it. (See cyberwarfare.)


Example Sentences

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The websites of various Ukrainian government institutions, including Parliament, the Foreign Ministry and the cabinet of ministers, crashed after a denial-of-service attack.

From New York Times Feb. 23, 2022

A distributed denial-of-service attack does the same but from different computers or networks acting in concert.

From Los Angeles Times Feb. 23, 2022

On Tuesday, the Ukrainian government’s Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security said that PrivatBank, the nation’s largest commercial bank, was hit with a denial-of-service attack that temporarily interfered with customers’ online banking transactions.

From Washington Post Feb. 15, 2022

“I told them pretty consistently in 2017: If you suffer a denial-of-service attack, I’m not sure your architecture can withstand it,” Bellotti said.

From Reuters Dec. 4, 2019

The U.S. blames Iranian hackers for a denial-of-service attack that overwhelmed six major American banks in 2012.

From Seattle Times Jan. 28, 2018

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