STIGUI
V-235020CAT II — Medium severitySV-235020r991589_rule

The SUSE operating system must prevent Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) redirect messages from being accepted.

Rule version SLES-15-040341 · STIG v2 · 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 the SUSE operating system does not accept IPv6 ICMP redirect messages.

Check the value of the IPv6 accept_redirects variable 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 the SUSE operating system 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-235020
Group title
SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00227
Rule ID
SV-235020r991589_rule
Check ID
C-38208r619329_chk
Fix ID
F-38171r619330_fix