A fork bomb is a denial-of-service attack. A tiny piece of code causes a process to replicate, and each time, the new instance of the program further depletes available system resources. When the attack pushes a server to the limit, it crashes.
Fork bombs aren't new. One of the very first instances of these attacks happened back in 1969. But sometimes, old threats work just as well as new ones in taking systems offline.
How does a fork bomb work?
Imagine opening hundreds or even thousands of instances of a process on your computer. The fan would whir, performance would lag, and eventually, your device would crash. A fork bomb works in much the same way.
Fork-bomb code creates a copy of a program. Once the new instance is running, the fork happens again. This process can happen indefinitely or until it exhausts all available memory. A denial-of-service attack like this can be devastating.
