The type of attack that involves overwhelming a network with traffic to shut it down is known as a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. In a DDoS attack, multiple compromised systems are used to flood a target with excessive requests, causing legitimate traffic to be disrupted. This tactic aims to make services unavailable to users, resulting in considerable downtime, economic losses, and potential damage to a company's reputation. Organizations often implement security measures like traffic filtering to mitigate these risks.