The system must not respond to ICMPv6 echo requests sent to a broadcast address.

Overview

Finding ID	Version	Rule ID	IA Controls	Severity
GEN007950-ESXI5-PNF	GEN007950-ESXI5-PNF	GEN007950-ESXI5-PNF_rule		Medium

Description
Responding to broadcast ICMP echo requests facilitates network mapping and provides a vector for amplification attacks. The ESXi-v5 firewall is enabled by default and allows Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) pings and communication with DHCP and DNS (UDP only) clients Permanent not a finding - By default, IPv6 is disabled for the management VMkernel port used to manage ESXi-v5. End users of the VMware ESXi infrastructure don't directly connect to the hosts. If vCenter Server is used for management tasks (required per this STIG), IPv6 must be configured on vCenter instead of the ESXi hosts. The only time it is required to configure IPv6 on ESXi hosts is if the vSphere Client connects directly to manage hosts from an IPv6-only device. Again, vSphere Client direct connections are not allowed per this STIG. All vSphere Client traffic must connect thru the vCenter Server.

Description

Responding to broadcast ICMP echo requests facilitates network mapping and provides a vector for amplification attacks. The ESXi-v5 firewall is enabled by default and allows Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) pings and communication with DHCP and DNS (UDP only) clients Permanent not a finding - By default, IPv6 is disabled for the management VMkernel port used to manage ESXi-v5. End users of the VMware ESXi infrastructure don't directly connect to the hosts. If vCenter Server is used for management tasks (required per this STIG), IPv6 must be configured on vCenter instead of the ESXi hosts. The only time it is required to configure IPv6 on ESXi hosts is if the vSphere Client connects directly to manage hosts from an IPv6-only device. Again, vSphere Client direct connections are not allowed per this STIG. All vSphere Client traffic must connect thru the vCenter Server.

STIG	Date
VMware ESXi v5 Security Technical Implementation Guide	2013-01-15

Details

Check Text ( C-GEN007950-ESXI5-PNF_chk )
ESXi supports this requirement and cannot be configured to be out of compliance. This is a permanent not a finding.

Fix Text (F-GEN007950-ESXI5-PNF_fix)
This requirement is permanent not a finding. No fix is required.