STIGUI
V-261323CAT II — Medium severitySV-261323r996439_rule

SLEM 5 must prevent Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) redirect messages from being accepted.

Rule version SLEM-05-254020 · STIG v1 · 2026-08-20

Discussion

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.

Check

Verify SLEM 5 does not accept IPv6 ICMP redirect messages with the following command:

     > sudo sysctl net.ipv6.conf.all.accept_redirects
     net.ipv6.conf.all.accept_redirects = 0

If the network parameter "ipv6.conf.all.accept_redirects" is not equal to "0", or nothing is returned, this is a finding.

Fix

Configure SLEM 5 to not accept IPv6 ICMP redirect messages by running the following command as an administrator:

     > sudo sysctl -w net.ipv6.conf.all.accept_redirects=0

If "0" is not the system's default value, add or update the following line in "/etc/sysctl.d/99-stig.conf":

     > sudo sh -c 'echo "net.ipv6.conf.all.accept_redirects=0" >> /etc/sysctl.d/99-stig.conf'
     > sudo sysctl --system

Identifiers

Group ID
V-261323
Group title
SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00227
Rule ID
SV-261323r996439_rule
Check ID
C-65052r996437_chk
Fix ID
F-64960r996438_fix