Ping of Death

The ping command makes use of the ICMP echo request and echo reply messages and is commonly used to determine whether the remote host is alive. In a Ping of Death attack, however, ping causes the remote system to hang, reboot, or crash. To do so, the attacker uses the ping command in conjunction with the -l argument (used to specify the size of the packet sent) to ping the target system with a data packet that exceeds the maximum bytes allowed by TCP/IP (65,536). For example, the following ping command creates a giant datagram  that is 65,540 bytes in size (the output follows):

C:\windows>ping -l 65540 hostname
Pinging hostname [xx.yy.tt.pp] with 65,540 bytes of data:

Reply from 203.94.243.71: bytes = 65540 time = 134ms TTL = 61
Reply from 203.94.243.71: bytes = 65540 time = 134ms TTL = 61
Reply from 203.94.243.71: bytes = 65540 time = 134ms TTL = 61
Reply from 203.94.243.71: bytes = 65540 time = 134ms TTL = 61

Countermeasure :- Fortunately, nearly all systems these days are not vulnerable to the Ping of Death. Unless you are running an ancient system with an equally ancient operating system, you are almost sure to be protected from this type of DOS attack. To make sure that your software is patched, however, visit your vendor's Web site and check.

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Posted in: DOS attacks,Network Hacking