With this kind of attack, someone sends an IP ping (or “echo my message back to me”) request to some recipient Website. Actually, the ping packet states that it should be broadcast to more than one host within the recipient Website’s local network. The ping packet also indicates that the request is from another Website, the target site that is to receive the Denial of Service (DoS). The result is that many Ping replies will be flooding back to the spoofed host, and if the flood is severe enough, the spoofed host will no longer be able to distinguish real traffic or receive it.

See Also: Denial of Service (DoS); Exploit; Flooding; Internet Protocol (IP); Packet, Ping or Packet Internet Grouper.