Short for
denial-of-service attack, a type of attack on a
network that is designed to bring the network to its knees by flooding it with useless
traffic. Many DoS attacks, such as the
Ping of Death and
Teardrop attacks, exploit limitations in the
TCP/IP protocols. For all known DoS attacks, there are software fixes that system administrators can install to limit the damage caused by the attacks. But, like
viruses, new DoS attacks are constantly being dreamed up by
hackers.