Let’s explore what the ping of death is and how it works.
What Is a “Ping?”
Before exploring what a ping of death is, we have to look at what a “ping” is to see how it can be turned against you.
A ping, by itself, is not harmful. In fact, your PC does a lot of them when you use the internet.
Pinging allows devices on the same network to double-check that they’re both working as intended. It’s akin to how two recipients say “hello?” down a phone to make sure the other is there and listening.
You can even learn how to perform a manual ping using your computer. It’s not very exciting, as all it tells you is how many milliseconds it takes for your PC to send a packet of data to the target. However, it can diagnose server problems and identify flaws in faulty connections.
What Is a “Ping of Death” Attack?
A ping is a very innocent and innocuous part of internet technology that PCs do every day online. So, how can someone turn this harmless tool into a weapon?
The ping of death is one of many kinds of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. Typically, when people use the term “DDoS,” it refers to a flood of connections bringing down a single server. However, there is a range of ways a hacker can initiate a DDoS attack, and the ping of death lets them perform one with a single computer.
To do this, the hacker needs to find an old system connected to the internet. The system has to be so old that it was set up before the wide roll-out of the fourth version of the Internet Protocol (IPv4). This is because these older networks don’t have proper ways to handle what happens when someone sends data larger than the packet maximum of 65,535 bytes.
Once the hacker finds one, they send a packet larger than the maximum size. A modern-day network will properly detect and handle this gigantic package, but a legacy system will buckle under its weight. This, in turn, can cause instability and crashes the network.
How Do You Protect Yourself From a Ping of Death?
If the above attack sounds worrying, don’t panic just yet. There is a good chance you’re already safe from it. All you need to do is ensure your computer and networking devices were designed and released after 1998, as devices made after this date are designed to withstand a ping of death.
Hopefully, the PC you’re using at home isn’t that old; in fact, you may struggle to imagine why anyone would still use such an ancient system. Believe it or not, there are still older devices and OSes that continue to chug along without having been upgraded. Perhaps owners have been worried that an upgrade might break everything they’ve already set up.
However, keeping a system stuck in the past means that it becomes outdated and open to security vulnerabilities. For example, take how ransomware attacks ravaged the NHS because they used Windows XP when 10 was readily available. The NHS seemingly dared not touch their already-running systems, which made them prime targets for hackers.
Companies need to choose between upgrading their systems and risk breaking everything or staying with their current setup and coming under attack. If they choose the latter for a very long time, it may just open them up to an attack like the ping of death.
The Ping of Death: A Threat You’re Probably Already Safe From
A ping of death attack is just as easy to carry out as it is devastating; that is, if the hacker targets computers that believe Windows 98 is the hot new operating system. As long as your hardware hails from the 21st Century, you don’t have anything to worry about.
Did you know you can also ping devices using your Android phone? There’s a nice selection of apps you can use for the job.
Image Credit: Freeda Michaux / Shutterstock.com
