Some routers have very straight forward setting on how to block WAN ping while some can be quite difficult to configure for a novice user. Below is a screenshot of a Belkin ADSL router’s settings that can be configured to block ICMP ping.
You may want to refer to your router’s manual on how to access your router’s configuration and check the firewall settings. However, if shows result like the screenshot below, that means your router/network is responding to ping requests. If you see a 100% packet loss that means your router/network is already safe from external ping. To see if an external source can ping your IP address, visit, click on your IP address that is shown on the webpage and click the Go button. For external ping request, you’ll need to configure your router instead of your computer. If you want to disable or enable ping requests, here we’ll show you some common places to check.įirst of all, you need to determine if you want to enable or disable ping reply on an internal or external network. Even the newer Windows operating systems are smart enough to block ping requests if you’ve selected your network location as public network. That is why there are situations when there is no need to reply to ping requests such as when you’re connected to a public Wi-Fi. If there is a ping reply, it rules out that the problem is related to the network connection.Īs useful as it is, hackers can also use ping to scan a network subnet to find potential online computers that are easy to break into due to misconfiguration on the security settings or download your files from folders that are openly shared without authentication. Normally when there is a connection problem for a computer, the first thing an administrator or technician would do is run a ping test between the computers and see if there is a reply.
It can be found built into Windows as early as Windows 95 and up to the current Windows 8.1 and even on other operating systems such as Linux and Mac OS. Ping is a very useful standard utility that is used to test the connection between computers.