A Ping of Death attack is a type of Denial of Service (DoS) attack that involves sending malformed or oversized packets to a target system. These packets exceed the maximum allowable size for an IP packet (65,535 bytes), causing the target system to crash, freeze, or reboot when it tries to reassemble them.
Example of a Ping of Death Attack:
1. Attacker: Sends an ICMP (ping) packet that is larger than 65,535 bytes.
2. Fragmentation: The oversized packet is fragmented into smaller packets by the attacker’s system.
3. Transmission: These smaller packets are sent to the target system.
4. Reassembly: The target system attempts to reassemble the fragments into the original oversized packet.
5. Impact: The reassembly process causes a buffer overflow, leading to system instability, crashes, or reboots.
This attack exploits vulnerabilities in the way systems handle packet reassembly. Although most modern systems are protected against this type of attack, some legacy systems may still be vulnerable.