Following the campaign of January 2016 on blocking incoming ICMP ("ping") requests from the Internet towards devices connected to the CERN wireless network (see here), the Computer Security team is now planning blocking incoming "pings" also to any other device connected to the office network (GPN) and the computer centre network (ITS).

This should further reduce the exposure of the CERN networks and its devices to the Internet and counter the threat of external parties mapping any device connected to these CERN networks. "Pings" to servers in the CERN computer centre via the LHCONE and LHCOPN networks (i.e. from WLCG Tier-1 and Tier-2 centres) as well as "pings" to the LXPLUS computing cluster will remain possible. Outgoing "pings" towards the Internet and within CERN will continue to work.

Incoming ICMP ("ping") from the Internet towards devices connected to the GPN will be stopped as of May 4th, 2016.