03-09-2009, 02:12 AM
The Ping of Death uses a ping system utility to create an IP packet that exceeds the maximum 65,536 bytes of data allowed by the IP specification. The oversize packet is then sent to an unsuspecting system. Systems may crash, hang, or reboot when they receive such a maliciously crafted packet. This attack is not new, and all OS vendors have fixes in place to handle the oversize packets.
