Ping of Death

Noun · Security & Infosec

Definitions

  1. A classic network attack that used oversized or malformed IP fragments to create an illegal reassembled packet, crashing or destabilizing vulnerable systems when processed. It is mainly of historical importance today because modern stacks generally defend against it, but it remains a well-known example of protocol implementation weakness.

    In plain English: A classic attack that used malformed ping traffic to crash vulnerable systems.

    Example: "The lab recreated a ping of death against an ancient stack to demonstrate how old IP fragmentation bugs used to take systems down."

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