RHEL-06-000092 - The system must not respond to ICMPv4 sent to a broadcast address - sysctl

Information

Ignoring ICMP echo requests (pings) sent to broadcast or multicast addresses makes the system slightly more difficult to enumerate on the network.

Solution

To set the runtime status of the 'net.ipv4.icmp_echo_ignore_broadcasts' kernel parameter, run the following command:

# sysctl -w net.ipv4.icmp_echo_ignore_broadcasts=1

Set the system to the required kernel parameter by adding the following line to '/etc/sysctl.conf' or a config file in the /etc/sysctl.d/ directory (or modify the line to have the required value):

net.ipv4.icmp_echo_ignore_broadcasts = 1

Issue the following command to make the changes take effect:

# sysctl --system

See Also

https://dl.dod.cyber.mil/wp-content/uploads/stigs/zip/U_RHEL_6_V2R2_STIG.zip

Item Details

Category: CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT

References: 800-53|CM-6b., CAT|III, CCI|CCI-000366, Rule-ID|SV-217921r603264_rule, STIG-ID|RHEL-06-000092, STIG-Legacy|SV-50336, STIG-Legacy|V-38535, Vuln-ID|V-217921

Plugin: Unix

Control ID: 37956e5a2951be10d1042ebdb5a5e01187b01c2d92c8e29898a93b31d2a87c1f