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Disable Accepting ICMP Redirects for All IPv4 Interfaces

An XCCDF Rule

Description

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

$ sudo sysctl -w net.ipv4.conf.all.accept_redirects=0
To make sure that the setting is persistent, add the following line to a file in the directory /etc/sysctl.d:
net.ipv4.conf.all.accept_redirects = 0

Rationale

ICMP redirect messages are used by routers to inform hosts that a more direct route exists for a particular destination. These messages modify the host's route table and are unauthenticated. An illicit ICMP redirect message could result in a man-in-the-middle attack.
This feature of the IPv4 protocol has few legitimate uses. It should be disabled unless absolutely required."

ID
xccdf_org.ssgproject.content_rule_sysctl_net_ipv4_conf_all_accept_redirects
Severity
Medium
References
Updated



Remediation - Shell Script

# Remediation is applicable only in certain platforms
if [ ! -f /.dockerenv ] && [ ! -f /run/.containerenv ]; then

# Comment out any occurrences of net.ipv4.conf.all.accept_redirects from /etc/sysctl.d/*.conf files

for f in /etc/sysctl.d/*.conf /run/sysctl.d/*.conf /usr/local/lib/sysctl.d/*.conf /lib/sysctl.d/*.conf; do

Remediation - Ansible

- name: List /etc/sysctl.d/*.conf files
  find:
    paths:
    - /run/sysctl.d/
    - /etc/sysctl.d/
    - /usr/local/lib/sysctl.d/