STIGUI
V-282703CAT II — Medium severitySV-282703r1201358_rule

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

Rule version TOSS-05-000231 · 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 TOSS 5 will not accept IPv6 ICMP redirect messages.

Note: If IPv6 is disabled on the system, this requirement is not applicable.

Check the value of the default "accept_redirects" variables using the following command:

$ sudo sysctl net.ipv6.conf.default.accept_redirects

net.ipv6.conf.default.accept_redirects = 0

If the returned line does not have a value of "0", or a line is not returned, this is a finding.

Fix

Configure TOSS 5 to prevent IPv6 ICMP redirect messages from being accepted.

Add or edit the following line in a single system configuration file, in the "/etc/sysctl.d/" directory:

net.ipv6.conf.default.accept_redirects = 0

Load settings from all system configuration files using the following command:

$ sudo sysctl --system

Identifiers

Group ID
V-282703
Group title
SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00227
Rule ID
SV-282703r1201358_rule
Check ID
C-87264r1201357_chk
Fix ID
F-87169r1201088_fix