What is SYN flood attack and how does it work in CS 1.6?

A SYN flood attack exploits the TCP handshake process. The attacker sends a flood of SYN (synchronization) packets to the target server, but never completes the handshake by sending the ACK (acknowledgment) packet. This leaves numerous half-open connections in the server's connection queue, consuming resources and preventing legitimate connections from being established. CS 1.6 servers are particularly vulnerable due to the nature of its connection management.