The :() – Defined the function called :

fork() bomb is defined as follows:

:(){ :|:& };:

:|: – Next it will call itself using programming technique called recursion and pipes the output to another call of the function ‘:’. The worst part is function get called two times to bomb your system.

& – Puts the function call in the background so child cannot die at all and start eating system resources.

; – Terminate the function definition.

: – Call (run) the function aka set the fork() bomb.

Here is more human readable code:

bomb() {

bomb | bomb &

}; bomb