Final answer:
Mafiaboy performed a Denial-of-Service (DoS) attack against multiple major websites on February 7, 2000, which led to significant service disruptions for users and businesses associated with the affected sites.
Step-by-step explanation:
On February 7, 2000, a 16-year-old attacker, who went by the name Mafiaboy, disrupted major websites such as CNN, Amazon, eBay, and others, indicating a significant cybersecurity event. These disruptions made it impossible for customers, employees, and suppliers to access resources on these websites. Mafiaboy successfully launched a Denial-of-Service (DoS) attack, which is designed to overwhelm a website with traffic, making it inaccessible to legitimate users. These kinds of attacks can cause substantial economic damage and disrupt vital services. Mafiaboy's attack on February 7, 2000, which disrupted and briefly knocked the websites of CNN, Amazon, and eBay, was a denial-of-service (DoS) attack. In a DoS attack, the goal is to make a computer or network unavailable to its intended users by overwhelming the target system with a flood of internet traffic, rendering it temporarily or indefinitely inaccessible.