What Is Fork Bomb?

What do you get when you cross a fork with a bomb? A fork bomb. The name is self-explanatory. A fork bomb is a denial of service category in which a continuous process depletes system resources. This simple form of malware attacks by creating multiple copies of itself. The first recorded instance of this type of malware was created by Robert Morris Sr., the first person to be convicted under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. His attack was powered by a UNIX utility called "fork". Likely, he never intended for his code to be used maliciously, but that's what happened—and it got him in jail! So how do you stop yourself from becoming infected with this malicious code? The best way is to ensure your computer has updated antivirus software running on it and that you keep your system up-to-date with security patches from time to time. Forking is creating a clone of a process, which can then run independently of the original function. It is a standard process in computer programming used to develop methods independent of the main program. In a process table, an entry is a slot for a strategy to run. The more entries you have, the slower the system will process. The saturation in the process table will cause your OS to become unresponsive and uninstalled software will stop working. To avoid this, you can change some settings on your computer. First, you can limit the number of open programs at any time. Can do this by closing unnecessary programs. Second, you can alter the number of active processes available anytime. Can do this by closing unnecessary software as well. Fork bombs are a severe problem for any computer system, but they are complicated to treat when the system is already heavy. When the saturation level is fully achieved in the process table, it is challenging to develop a program to isolate a fork bomb. Another difficulty is the time it takes to locate and terminate fork bombs before creating more copies.