Microsoft Patches 1990s-Era 'Ping of Death'

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday August 9, 2011 @04:18PM from the better-late-than-never dept.

CWmike writes "Microsoft on Tuesday issued 13 security updates that patched 22 vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer, Windows, Office and other software, including one that harked back two decades to something dubbed 'Ping of Death.' While other patched vulnerabilities we more serious, one marked 'CVE-2011-1871' brought back memories for nCircle's Andrew Storms. 'This looks like the Ping of Death from the early-to-mid 1990s,' he said. 'Then, when a specially-crafted ping request was sent to a host, it caused the Windows PC to blue screen, and then reboot.' Two decades ago, the Ping of Death (YouTube video demonstration) was used to bring down Windows PCs remotely, often as a way to show the instability of the operating system."

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POD has long since been patched. by atlasdropperofworlds · 2011-08-09 16:32 · Score: 5, Informative

Just FYI, the POD doesn't affect any modern OSes. It used to bring down Windows NT (and earlier), early linux kernels, as well as Mac OS 7 back in the day.