IT Best Practices Tip: nist_V-38533

Severity: low

Short Description

The system must ignore ICMPv4 redirect messages by default.

Long Description

This feature of the IPv4 protocol has few legitimate uses. It should be disabled unless it is absolutely required.

How to Check Correct Configuration

The status of the "net.ipv4.conf.default.accept_redirects" kernel parameter can be queried by running the following command:

$ sysctl net.ipv4.conf.default.accept_redirects

The output of the command should indicate a value of "0". If this value is not the default value, investigate how it could have been adjusted at runtime, and verify it is not set improperly in "/etc/sysctl.conf".

$ grep net.ipv4.conf.default.accept_redirects /etc/sysctl.conf

If the correct value is not returned, this is a finding.

How to Fix

To set the runtime status of the "net.ipv4.conf.default.accept_redirects" kernel parameter, run the following command:

# sysctl -w net.ipv4.conf.default.accept_redirects=0

If this is not the system's default value, add the following line to "/etc/sysctl.conf":

net.ipv4.conf.default.accept_redirects = 0