Description: A fork bomb is a denial-of-service (DoS) attack that exploits the ‘fork’ operation in Unix-like operating systems. The ‘fork’ operation allows a process to create a copy of itself, generating a new child process. In a fork bomb attack, an attacker can create an excessive number of child processes in a short period, which can exhaust system resources such as memory and processing capacity. This can lead to the system becoming inoperable or extremely slow, affecting its availability and performance. This type of attack is particularly effective in environments where resource limits are not properly configured, allowing a single malicious process to consume all available resources. The fork bomb is an example of how vulnerabilities in process management can be exploited to cause significant disruptions in system services, highlighting the importance of implementing adequate security measures to mitigate such risks.
