e-mail bomb

Definition

A type of technological attack, where the purpose is to overwhelm and shut down a mailbox or an entire e-mail server. There are many ways that an e-mail bomb can be created, including setting up a "zombie" or "robot" which will continuously send out thousands or even millions of emails to a given e-mail address, or simply signing up an email address for thousands of email services such as newsletters and mailing lists, thereby flooding their mailbox with things they don't want and must manually and individually unsubscribe from. E-mail bombs are purely malicious activities.