PING.EXE
Summary
Ping (ping.exe) sends ICMP echo requests to test network connectivity to a target host. Displays round-trip time and packet loss statistics.
PING.EXE is the 429th most commonly executed Windows program in EchoTrail's dataset, observed 15,946 times across enterprise environments. It typically runs from C:\Windows\System32 and it is most often launched by cmd.exe.
Behavior
Top Paths
- C:\Windows\System3258.2%
- C:\Windows\SysWOW6441.8%
Top Hashes (SHA256)
- a97f91d6f165705edd286aeff25691806759bfdb051b20c4853965247dda36da25.71%
- e3cd6a30d8eea5ba802a453c9ff6225625a61074323e956fb04854e2f3eb627e12.75%
- 6fcd8b595636afcf7f7e1bdb4e5062a960fe53e67d82a69ea6db21d16115d11311.31%
- c370e9606a929aca877e7e5267a9f05ffa09a7cc4c53575b3be8216dfed945b110.14%
- aab02d72b4980d67f5e6c9bd5d9649aa034ce304f43cf301064d2f33a9124e5c8.1%
- a510579a207c53ba35ef3551d2d62cfd9fe0e9d7f13c1dd6beb8ced0d7f1154e7.03%
- ed7fa5b3ccbdd31a9e83f7c59f78ab5e2c83c7feedcc5f8b95948d11ebd7ff345.63%
- bdc34d4260925e54b84395b8167ca5d6f9c4aa2e047221c14f7736dddeb139063.91%
- c9b49dbf091bc66d6aee677269c613aeda0952ddbd113e21a6d9553c3e374d0f3.51%
- 9b97c065bca5fead86c951d9152a3d914dfcb1d9ac4d644fe1b0c7311489d4e32.87%
Process Ancestry
Top Grandparents
- explorer.exe79.34%
- svchost.exe7.41%
- WmiPrvSE.exe4.02%
- webexAppLauncher.exe1.04%
- cmd.exe0.52%
- msiexec.exe0.49%
- LTSVC.exe0.44%
- bash.exe0.21%
- services.exe0.2%
Top Parents
- cmd.exe53.06%
- dcconfig.exe35.02%
- sdiagnhost.exe4.26%
- powershell.exe3.76%
- rundll32.exe2.26%
- AvastSvc.exe0.13%
- RmmService.exe0.13%
- bash.exe0.12%
- pwsh.exe0.08%
- explorer.exe0.01%
Top Children
- conhost.exe100%
Rare or environment-specific process names are omitted from ancestry tables. Percentages are of all observed relationships.
Security Analysis
What does PING.EXE normally do?
Located in C:\Windows\System32 or C:\Windows\SysWOW64. Launched by cmd.exe, management agents, and network diagnostic tools.
When is PING.EXE suspicious?
Ping sweeps (rapid sequential pings to different hosts) indicating network enumeration. Used as a connectivity check before lateral movement. Part of discovery sequences.
How do attackers abuse PING.EXE?
Network discovery: ping sweeps to identify live hosts. Also used as a simple delay mechanism in scripts (ping -n 10 127.0.0.1 > nul as a sleep substitute).
Detection guidance
Low priority alone. Ping sweeps (many targets in sequence) are worth monitoring as network reconnaissance.
False positive notes
Extremely common in monitoring, health checks, and administration.
Related Processes
Ask Rocky about PING.EXE
Rocky answers questions about PING.EXE grounded in this same dataset — free, no account needed.
Need this data programmatically? The Rocky API includes 500 free lookups a month. Or just ask Rocky.
Data from EchoTrail's dataset of ~346M Windows process executions. Last extracted 2026-08-04.