What is Ping Spoofing and How to Protect Yourself From It?

I got asked this question a lot, what is ping spoofing and how I can protect myself from it? today I am going to define it and provide some tips you can use to protect yourself from this practice.

What is Ping Spoofing?

So what is Ping Spoofing exactly? Basically, Ping spoofing is a method whereby another company or an individual can persuade your computer to send out pings to a different destination than they were meant for.

This causes the packets of information to go somewhere else and this results in your disconnection from any games you might be playing or even email and other internet services like YouTube, Spotify, and Netflix (more on that later).

Ping spoofing is most effective when targeting both upstream and downstream traffic. It is done at the source of the internet, not within a machine or network and it affects all users on a certain line.

More specifically, it lies in between your computer and the DNS servers that run requests for you.

It is a common practice for many gamers to use a program or software that allows them to change the unique identification address of their network card.

This happens when they want to secure their computers from being detected, allowing them more time on the server they are playing in.

What most gamers do not know is that this can be used maliciously. By faking or spoofing your ping, you can pretend that you are at a different location than where your actual computer is.

Ping, which stands for Packet InterNet Groper, is used to check if there are networks in the area and what the response time is to them.

For example, when you send out a ping, your network card will count the size of your data and wait for a reply from the destination it has been sent to.

Most people do not know that you can alter this unique identifier address of yours by replacing it with a random number.

The amount of time it takes for you to receive a response from the server is called latency, which refers to the time it takes between when you sent out a request or ping for data and when you receive a response.

The aim of using this program is to make other gamers think that you are at a different location, resulting in them thinking they have an advantage over their competitors.

This spoofing can also be used by hackers to get into your computers or devices. It is more complicated, but by using this practice of ping spoofing, your network card can be fooled into thinking you are somewhere else, allowing them an entryway to get access through your system.

Is Spoofing Illegal?

A spoof can be described as a deliberately deceptive imitation, such as for humorous or political purposes.

Spoof is also used as a verb; it means “to make fun of”. Speculation has been raised about whether spoofing is illegal.

Spoofing is legal when it involves non-financial products and services such as television, music and entertainment products, politics, and news media.

When spoofing involves financial services or stocks in trade, however, it becomes a form of fraud that can be considered illegal.

A recent example of this kind of spoofing was seen in the 2016 United States presidential election, where a man took it upon himself to create a hoax website that looked like the real CNN.com website where he replaced content with “fake news” on Hillary Clinton’s emails.

Once someone tried clicking on these links, they were redirected to the official site of the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

The owner of this website was later arrested for computer fraud, wire fraud and illegally gaining access to a protected computer.

This shows that spoofing can be considered an illegal act because not only does it deceive people but it also involves the spreading of false information which may cause public unrest.

As long as you are using technology responsibly, there is no reason to believe that spoofing is illegal.

It is, however, important to understand your laws and what can be considered legal and barely legal “spoofing”.

If you are in doubt about whether or not spoofing in any form is legal, always play it safe by checking with your local authorities in order to avoid any kind of trouble.

If you are not sure where to start with this, a good place would be your country’s law enforcement officials.

How to protect yourself from Ping Spoofing?

Ping spoofing is a way to send packets with an altered source address that seems like they’re coming from your router.

The problem with this is that the reply will go to the wrong person and may not be displayed on your computer monitor.

To prevent someone from doing this, make sure that you use a static IP address on your routers, instead of DHCP.

Also make sure that all of the settings on your router are set to “obtain an IP automatically”, including the DNS server settings.

If someone tries ping spoofing against you, they won’t be able to because they won’t have access to your network.

Change settings on your router

– If you want to stop people from doing this, just type in your IP address into your browser and log into the router.

By default, it should go to 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1, which are most routers’ IP addresses. Then set the settings I mentioned above all to “obtain an IP automatically, including the DNS server settings.

– If you’re not sure what your router’s IP address is, look in the manual that came with it, or do a quick Google search to find out how to find your router’s IP address on Windows or Mac OS X.

If you don’t know how to get to it, Google “How to find your router’s IP address on [your operating system]”.

– This is a sure way to protect yourself from ping spoofing. If someone tries to, your router will show an error because the source address doesn’t match the router’s own IP address.

Enable the wireless encryption

– In addition to that you can also protect your network by enabling the wireless encryption that it uses.

The most common is WEP, which can be easily cracked but does provide some protection against people casually browsing through your wireless internet connection.

Another way to encrypt it is via WPA2 Enterprise, which provides top-of-the-line encryption for wireless networks.

Use Firewall

– If your network is behind a modem or a router, you can also use a firewall. This is a special type of software that monitor’s your network and blocks out all unwanted connections.

It keeps an eye on the ports being used by each program and when it sees one trying to access the internet, it then decides whether to allow or deny it.

If you do decide to use a firewall, make sure that you spent some time learning about what it can and can’t do.

Don’t just turn it on right away without knowing what you’re doing because it may end up blocking things like Skype or your antivirus software.

Conclusion

That is it, in this article I provided the meaning of ping spoofing and provided some tips to protect yourself from this practice. 

I hope it helped you in some way and thank you for reading. 

Leave a Comment

Exit mobile version