Zack's Kernel News
Zack's Kernel News
Chronicler Zack Brown reports on the latest news, views, dilemmas, and developments within the Linux kernel community.
Improving Web Browser Security
Jeff Xu submitted a security patch on behalf of the Chrome browser project. In general, browsers are among the most security-intensive software projects out there. Browsing the web involves directly running a whole lot of code from all over the Internet locally on your computer. Bad actors abound. Protecting users is one of the key essential features of any web browser.
In this case, Jeff proposed a new mseal() system call, which would allow Chrome to "seal" regions of memory against modification. Jeff's patch also included some changes to the generic mmap() system call to add the PROT_SEAL and MAP_SEALABLE bits to the mmap() flags. These on/off bits would tell whether a region had been sealed or was available to be sealed.
As Jeff explained it, "Memory sealing is useful to mitigate memory corruption issues where a corrupted pointer is passed to a memory management system. For example, such an attacker primitive can break control-flow integrity guarantees since read-only memory that is supposed to be trusted can become writable or .text pages can get remapped. Memory sealing can automatically be applied by the runtime loader to seal .text and rodata [read-only data] pages and applications can additionally seal security critical data at runtime."
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Bugs Found in sudo
Two critical flaws allow users to gain access to root privileges.
-
Fedora Continues 32-Bit Support
In a move that should come as a relief to some portions of the Linux community, Fedora will continue supporting 32-bit architecture.
-
Linux Kernel 6.17 Drops bcachefs
After a clash over some late fixes and disagreements between bcachefs's lead developer and Linus Torvalds, bachefs is out.
-
ONLYOFFICE v9 Embraces AI
Like nearly all office suites on the market (except LibreOffice), ONLYOFFICE has decided to go the AI route.
-
Two Local Privilege Escalation Flaws Discovered in Linux
Qualys researchers have discovered two local privilege escalation vulnerabilities that allow hackers to gain root privileges on major Linux distributions.
-
New TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro Powered by AMD Ryzen AI 300
The TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro 14 Gen10 offers serious power that is ready for your business, development, or entertainment needs.
-
LibreOffice Tested as Possible MS Office Alternative
Another major organization has decided to test the possibility of migrating from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice.
-
Linux Mint 20 Reaches EOL
With Linux Mint 20 at its end of life, the time has arrived to upgrade to Linux Mint 22.
-
TuxCare Announces Support for AlmaLinux 9.2
Thanks to TuxCare, AlmaLinux 9.2 (and soon version 9.6) now enjoys years of ongoing patching and compliance.
-
Go-Based Botnet Attacking IoT Devices
Using an SSH credential brute-force attack, the Go-based PumaBot is exploiting IoT devices everywhere.