smurf attack

noun

smurf attack

noun

Etymology In reference to the Smurf cartoon characters, suggesting a large number of small attackers overwhelming a larger opponent.

1

A largely obsolete form of denial-of-service attack, involving broadcasting ICMP packets with the intended victim's IP address to a large computer network, causing the victim's computer to be overwhelmed by the response packets from the network.

Computer security

Related terms
smurfable

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.