DoS attack
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[Usenet,common; note that it's unrelated to DOS as name of an
operating system] Abbreviation for Denial-Of-Service attack. This
abbreviation is most often used of attempts to shut down newsgroups
with floods of {spam}, or to flood network links with large amounts of
traffic, or to flood network links with large amounts of traffic,
often by abusing network broadcast addresses. Compare {slashdot
effect}.