Is it a bad idea for a firewall to block ICMP?
Compared to other IP protocols ICMP is fairly small, but it does serve a large number of disparate functions. At its core ICMP was designed as the debugging, troubleshooting, and error reporting mechanism for IP. This makes it insanely valuable so a lot of thought needs to into shutting it down. It would be a bit like tacking >/dev/null 2>&1 to the end of all your cron entries.
Most of the time when I talk to people about blocking ICMP they're really talking about ping and traceroute. This translates into 3 types
- 0 - Echo Reply (ping response)
- 8 - Echo Request (ping request)
- 11 - Time Exceeded
That's 3 types out of 16. Let's look at a couple of the other ICMP type that are available.
- 4 - Source Quench (send by a router to ask a host to slow down its transmissions)
- 3 - Destination Unreachable (consists of 16 different kinds of messages ranging from reporting a fragmentation problem up to a firewall reporting that a port is closed)
Both of which can be invaluable for keeping non-malicious hosts operating properly on a network. In fact there are two (probably more but these are the most obvious to me) very good cases where you don't want to restrict ICMP.
- Path MTU Discovery - We use a combination of the Don't Fragment flag and type 3 code 4 (Destination Unreachable - Fragmentation required, and DF flag set) to determine the smallest MTU on the path between the hosts. This way we avoid fragmentation during the transmission.
- Active Directory requires clients ping the domain controllers in order to pull down GPOs. They use ping to determine the "closest" controller and if none respond, then it is assumed that none are close enough. So the policy update doesn't happen.
That's not to say that we should necessarily leave everything open for all the world to see. Reconnaissance is possible with ICMP and that is generally the reason given for blocking. One can use pings to determine if a host is actually on, or Time Exceededs (as part of a traceroute) to map out network architectures, or Rory forbid a Redirect (type 5 code 0) to change the default route of a host.
Given all that, my advice is, as always, take a measured and thoughtful approach to your protections. Blocking ICMP in its entirety is probably not the best idea, but picking and choosing what you block and to/from where probably will get you what you want.
ICMP exists for a reason, and not all of that reason is ping. It's the "meta" protocol that is used to communicate control messages about the network itself. Have a look at ICMP on Wikipedia to get a better idea of what it is and what it's for.
Other ICMP messages also include destination host unreachable, fragmentation required, congestion control, TTL exceeded, IP protocol errors, and an number of others.
The network will operate without ICMP--resilience in the face of packet drops is one of IP's core strengths--but it will operate more slowly, less efficiently, and without the benefit of these signals to help you diagnose and solve problems.
Security issues with ICMP tend to be the more nebulous "information disclosure" issues. E.g. If your router sends an ICMP message back to someone, then that someone knows you have a router. Maybe the attacker knowing you have a router is something you're worried about, or more likely it's not. But security research tends to err on the side of silence just to be on the safe side, just in case.
Occasionally there's an ICMP related "ping of death" style vulnerability in an OS. Currently none exist in any mainstream OSes. But once again, security advocates err on the side of caution, just in case.
To be honest it is smart to filter some outbound ICMP both router level and software firewall level as a extra layer of security.
It my not be pertinent to stopping a DoS or DDoS but malicious people still use ICMP to try and retrieve as much information about a network as possible before they attempt to breach it.
I am not saying they ONLY use ICMP but that is one of the few packet types they use and depending on if you have you're flood gates open they can gain a great detail of information in very little time.
Take some time to google and look up information about how NMAP and a few other programs utilize ICMP as one of the resources to gathering information then base your filters off of what you feel is necessary to protect yourself and your network.
If at all possible set up a internal test network (I personally bought a secondary wifi router a cheap one and have a secondary pc as a firewall to test all of my router/ipchains/software firewalls settings before I employ them across my main network for my household and any customer that hires me to secure their networks.
I highly encourage people to try and do some research on port scanning and how to breach firewalls on their own network so that they can better protect themselves and any family they are helping.
Here is a couple of resources I have used and referred friends to prior. Sans Information Security How ICMP is used for Reconnaissance
And Also
InfoSec Institute ICMP Attacks
Some of the attacks are no longer viable but there are newer forms of Smurf that work still because of how the programmer was able to re code the original attack and change how it works and uses resources.
Dig around and google is your friend along with Stack Exchange and also duckduckgo search engine is wonderful for resources that google might filter out just be cautious and use your wits!
I have been a pc tech for 22 years and a network security specialist for 10 I am currently in chool for my ECH and my CPTS and I am looking at Offensive Security courses when I finish these.
Hope this helps and others find this information useful as I restore backups I made to this system and I find my other links and resources on this matter I will update this answer.