Table of Contents

3.2.4 Ensure suspicious packets are logged (Scored)

Profile Applicability

Level 1 - Server
Level 1 - Workstation 

Description

When enabled, this feature logs packets with un-routable source addresses to the kernel log.

Rationale

Enabling this feature and logging these packets allows an administrator to investigate the possibility that an attacker is sending spoofed packets to their system.

Audit

Run the following command and verify output matches:

# sysctl net.ipv4.conf.all.log_martians 
net.ipv4.conf.all.log_martians = 1 
# sysctl net.ipv4.conf.default.log_martians 
net.ipv4.conf.default.log_martians = 1

Remediation

Set the following parameter in the /etc/sysctl.conf file:

net.ipv4.conf.all.log_martians = 1 
net.ipv4.conf.default.log_martians = 1

Run the following commands to set the active kernel parameters:

# sysctl -w net.ipv4.conf.all.log_martians=1 
# sysctl -w net.ipv4.conf.default.log_martians=1 
# sysctl -w net.ipv4.route.flush=1