🕳️ A ground hole 🖥️ A trap server

sinkhole

1 7.0

A server or address set to catch harmful internet traffic for study

noun
/ˈsɪŋkˌhoʊl/

Texting

: sinkhole (término técnico)

In cybersecurity, a sinkhole is used to redirect and isolate harmful internet traffic from legitimate users.

Examples

By creating a sinkhole, the IT department was able to prevent further damage from the recent cyber attack.
"In my experience, there's no mediocre implementation; either it works out great or becomes a financial sinkhole," Kodner says.

Academic text (2004)
What people have not been talking about enough is that the Ryan budget contains an $897 billion sinkhole: massive but unexplained cuts in such discretionary domestic programs as education, food and drug inspection, workplace safety, environmental protection, and law enforcement.

Blog text (23)
The security team set up a sinkhole to capture the botnet's traffic and analyze the malicious activity.

Surface Forms

sinkhole singular

sinkholes plural

Morphology

sinkhole = sink + hole (semi-transparent) = sink + hole

The components are recognizable, but the cybersecurity sense is a metaphorical technical extension that a learner may not derive from literal meanings alone.

Etymology

Sinkhole comes from sink ('to go down') and hole ('a hollow place'), giving the image of something that swallows things like a drain. In cybersecurity a sinkhole is a server that 'sinks' or catches bad internet traffic so it can be studied and stopped.