What is a Mail Bomb?
Mail bombing is when someone sends a massive amount of mail to an address in the attempt to jam that mail box. This is either done with a few large messages or many smaller messages. It is considered an abuse of system resources and perpetrators will get their accounts suspended when they are caught. We do not “check” anyone’s mail to find these and other mail abuses, we find out about them when one is turned into us. Other mail behavior that is prohibited are the passing on chain letters and mass mailings. These activities not only affect the recipients but also have a severe impact upon the systems and networks involved. It is suggested that you read the web page http://info.rutgers.edu/Techdir/acceptable-use.html for guidelines on what is and is not allowed.
An email bomb, or mail bomb for short, is an act of malicious net abuse whereby an email account is purposely flooded with data or messages, making the account inaccessible. The account might be down for hours or for days, and can result in the Internet Service Provider (ISP) discontinuing service to the victim of the attack. This is because a mail bomb can cause an ISPs mail server to crash, affecting not just the victim, but all of the ISPs clients. When a mail server is down, no one who subscribes to that ISP can send or receive email through the provider. People who send mail bombs are known as lusers (losers) within the hacking community. It is considered an infantile form of striking out, a simplistic and crude attack that carelessly affects many more people than the perpetrator’s target(s). There are a few methods for sending a mail bomb, overviewed here in general terms. A mail bomb is effective because of the way email accounts are handled. Email accounts reside on a mail serv
