Which scanning method uses ICMP ECHO requests to determine if a host is alive?

Which scanning method uses ICMP ECHO requests to determine if a host is alive?

• A. ICMP ECHO ping scans
• B. UDP Ping Scan
• C. A ping sweep
• D. Angry IP Scanner

Answer: (A)

Testing whether a host is alive on a network is done by sending an ICMP Echo Request and waiting for an ICMP Echo Reply. This is the classic ping mechanism, and when you apply it across a range of addresses, you’re performing an ICMP ECHO ping scan. If a host responds, you know it’s reachable; if there’s no reply, the host may be down, unreachable, or filtering ICMP traffic. This approach is particularly direct for reachability checks. UDP-based probes can miss alive hosts because many systems drop UDP packets or don’t respond unless a specific service is running, making it less reliable for simply confirming whether a host is present. A ping sweep refers to the broader activity of pinging many addresses, but the method described here explicitly uses ICMP ECHO requests. Angry IP Scanner is a tool that can perform such scans, but it’s the technique of sending ICMP Echo requests that constitutes the method in question.

Testing whether a host is alive on a network is done by sending an ICMP Echo Request and waiting for an ICMP Echo Reply. This is the classic ping mechanism, and when you apply it across a range of addresses, you’re performing an ICMP ECHO ping scan. If a host responds, you know it’s reachable; if there’s no reply, the host may be down, unreachable, or filtering ICMP traffic.

This approach is particularly direct for reachability checks. UDP-based probes can miss alive hosts because many systems drop UDP packets or don’t respond unless a specific service is running, making it less reliable for simply confirming whether a host is present. A ping sweep refers to the broader activity of pinging many addresses, but the method described here explicitly uses ICMP ECHO requests. Angry IP Scanner is a tool that can perform such scans, but it’s the technique of sending ICMP Echo requests that constitutes the method in question.