OL 9 must not respond to Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) echoes sent to a broadcast address.

Severity
Group ID
Group Title
Version
Rule ID
Date
STIG Version
mediumV-271873SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00227OL09-00-006030SV-271873r1092331_rule2025-05-081
Description
Responding to broadcast (ICMP) echoes facilitates network mapping and provides a vector for amplification attacks. Ignoring ICMP echo requests (pings) sent to broadcast or multicast addresses makes the system slightly more difficult to enumerate on the network.
ℹ️ Check
Verify that OL 9 does not respond to ICMP echoes sent to a broadcast address. Check the value of the "icmp_echo_ignore_broadcasts" variable with the following command: $ sysctl net.ipv4.icmp_echo_ignore_broadcasts net.ipv4.icmp_echo_ignore_broadcasts = 1 If the returned line does not have a value of "1", a line is not returned, or the retuned line is commented out, this is a finding.
✔️ Fix
Configure OL 9 to not respond to IPv4 ICMP echoes sent to a broadcast address. Add or edit the following line in a single system configuration file in the "/etc/sysctl.d/" directory: net.ipv4.icmp_echo_ignore_broadcasts = 1 Load settings from all system configuration files with the following command: $ sudo sysctl --system