Information
The net.ipv4.ip_forward flag is used to tell the system whether it can forward packets or not.
Rationale:
Setting the flag to 0 ensures that a system with multiple interfaces (for example, a hard proxy), will never be able to forward packets, and therefore, never serve as a router.
Solution
Set the following parameter in /etc/sysctl.conf or a /etc/sysctl.d/* file:
net.ipv4.ip_forward = 0
Run the following commands to set the active kernel parameters:
# sysctl -w net.ipv4.ip_forward=0
# sysctl -w net.ipv4.route.flush=1