How to Make a Zip Bomb or Zip of Death

A zip bomb, also known as the zip of death or decompression bomb, is a simple-looking zip archive that can occupy several TBs or PBs of space when fully extracted. It can easily crash or hang any program or system that tries to read or process it, especially the Antivirus software. That’s why the name “Zip of Death”. Though, it is quite dangerous, it is very easy to make a zip bomb or zip of death.

A zip bomb uses the popular Zip format, which allows repeated compression of the data, which can dramatically reduce the file size. When an unsuspecting user tries to extract the contents of the zip bomb, it can consume significant system resources causing the system to crash or become unresponsive.

WARNING: This tutorial is only for educational purposes. It’s important to note that creating, distributing, or using zip bombs with the intent to cause harm or disrupt computer systems is illegal and unethical. Such actions can result in severe legal consequences and damage to computer systems and networks. Always use your knowledge of technology responsibly and in compliance with the law.

SEE ALSO: How to Create a Folder Bomb that can create 10,000 folders within second?

Create a Zip of Death or Zip Bomb using a Simple Method

As mentioned above, it’s quite easy to create a zip of death or zip bomb. You just need to create a simple text file with NULL characters, zeros, ones, or even spaces and compress it into a zip file. Use a high level of compression to make the size of the zip file smaller. Re-compressing the zip file reduces the size even further.

So, in this tutorial, we will show you a simple method to make a Zip of Death or Zip Bomb. Be warned, this zip bomb may crash your own system if you mistakenly click on it. You will need 7-zip, WinRAR, or any other archiving software to create the zip archive.

Step 1: Open Notepad on your PC

First of all, we need to open Notepad. For that, press Windows Key + R to launch the RUN utility, then type notepad and press Enter.

It will open a new Notepad window. We will use a notepad to create a zip bomb.

SEE ALSO: Use Browser as Notepad and 7 other Cool Tricks.

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Step 2: Create a Text Document with Null Characters, Space, Zeros, or Ones

In notepad, enter a NULL character, Space, Zero (0), One (1). Why these characters? Because we will get a better compression ratio with these characters compared to other characters.

So, to enter a Null character, type Alt + 255 shortcut on the keyboard. This will print one NULL character. Alternatively, you can also use SPACE, Zeros, or Ones. After that, you can copy and paste the existing characters in Notepad to make the file larger.

After the file is large enough, save it to any folder on your PC. In this tutorial, we have saved it in a folder named Zip Bomb on the Desktop. Type a name for it and click Save.

SEE ALSO: How to Create Portable Version of Applications for Windows?

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Step 3: Make Copies of the Text File and Combine them using CMD

Now, make copies of this text file. You can make as many copies as you can. In this tutorial, we have created around 100+ copies of the same file. Combining more files will make our Zip Bomb or Zip of Death even larger.

We will now copy the content of all these small files into one file. For that, we are going to use Command Prompt. So, open the Command Prompt in the same folder where text files are present.

After that, type the following command to copy the content of all text files, into a single text file named as a.txt.

copy /b *.txt a.txt

Explanation:

copy	Used to copy files or folders
/b	Used to copy binary content of files
*.txt	Copies all text files of the current directory
a.txt	Copy all the content in a new file with the name a.txt

Once completed successfully, you can delete small files from the folder and keep only newly created a.txt file.

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SEE ALSO: How to Hide Files into Image using Command Prompt?

Step 4: Repeat the Process to Make the Zip Bomb Bigger

In the previous step, we have created a single text file of size 8 MB. Now, we will make the size of the text file even larger (approximately 1 GB). So, make another 120 copies of the a.txt file in the same folder.

Again repeat the same process. Combine these files into a single file named as b.txt using the Command Prompt just like in the previous step.

copy /b *.txt b.txt

You can repeat the same process to get an even bigger text file to create a zip of death or zip bomb. In this tutorial, we have created a text file greater than 5 GB in size.

WARNING: Do not open this text file on your PC as it may hang or even crash your PC.

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SEE ALSO: Click here for more Windows CMD Commands.

Step 5: Compress the Text File into a Zip File

Now is the time to zip it up. Right-click on the b.txt file and select 7-Zip > Add to archive (you may need to install 7-Zip to see this option).

Provide a name for your archive and select the format as “zip“. Then select compression level to Ultra, compression method to LZMA, and dictionary size to 256 MB. Finally, click OK to create a zip archive.

As you click OK, your large text file will be compressed into a smaller zip file. You can check the size of the newly created zip file, it’s amazingly small in size.

SEE ALSO: How to Compress and Extract Zip files on iPhone and iPad?

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Step 6: Re-zip the Archive to Create the Zip of Death

You can make the size of this archive even smaller by re-zipping it. Make several copies of the zip file and select all of them. Then right-click and select 7-Zip > Add to archive. This will create the Zip of Death or Zip Bomb.

After that, provide a name, and select the same compression options as the previous step. You can also set a password for this zip file to avoid accidental extraction. Set the options and click OK.

Finally, your zip bomb or zip of death is ready. You can see the size of the Zip bomb is just 16 KB. This file contains a total of 20×5.5 = 100 GB when expanded.

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Download 42.zip Bomb File

Download this file at your own risk. When extracted, it takes around 4.5 Petabytes of space. For security purposes, it is password protected. Zip password is 42 in numbers.

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SEE ALSO: How to Automatically Delete your Google Account?

Make a Zip of Death or Zip Bomb using Simple Steps

Now, your Zip Bomb is ready. You must be careful enough not to open it yourself. With this Zip of Death, you can play pranks on your friends. Be generous to your friends and ask them to save all their work before opening this file.

However, remember that using zip bombs with the intent to cause harm or disrupt computer systems is illegal and unethical.

Hope you liked this tutorial. Feel free to write your problems and suggestions in the comment section below.