Final answer:
A Denial of Service (DoS) attack is an attack on a network that is designed to interrupt or stop network traffic by flooding it with too many requests, causing it to become unresponsive or crash.
Step-by-step explanation:
An attack on a network that is designed to interrupt or stop network traffic by flooding it with too many requests is called a Denial of Service attack. In a Denial of Service (DoS) attack, the attacker overwhelms the target system with a flood of requests, causing it to become unresponsive or crash.
The goal of a DoS attack is to disrupt the normal functioning of a network or website, making it unavailable to its intended users. This can be accomplished by sending a large volume of traffic, such as ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol) Echo Requests, to the target. This flood of requests consumes the network's resources, preventing legitimate users from accessing the service.
For example, an attacker might use a botnet, which is a network of compromised computers, to launch a coordinated DoS attack. Each compromised computer in the botnet sends requests to the target, amplifying the impact of the attack and making it more difficult to mitigate.