SYN flood
termnetworkingsecurity
A denial-of-service that opens many half-finished TCP connections to exhaust a server's resources.
By sending a torrent of SYNs and never completing the handshake, an attacker fills the table of pending connections so legitimate ones cannot get in. SYN cookies are the classic defence, letting the server avoid holding state for unproven connections.
Also known as: syn-flood, syn flood attack, half-open