The system must implement virtual address space randomization.

Overview

Finding ID	Version	Rule ID	IA Controls	Severity
RHEL-06-000078	RHEL-06-000078	RHEL-06-000078_rule		Medium

Description
Address space layout randomization (ASLR) makes it more difficult for an attacker to predict the location of attack code he or she has introduced into a process's address space during an attempt at exploitation. Additionally, ASLR also makes it more difficult for an attacker to know the location of existing code in order to re-purpose it using return oriented programming (ROP) techniques.

STIG	Date
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Security Technical Implementation Guide	2013-02-05

Details

Check Text ( C-RHEL-06-000078_chk )
The status of the "kernel.randomize_va_space" kernel parameter can be queried by running the following command: $ sysctl kernel.randomize_va_space The output of the command should indicate a value of "1". If this value is not the default value, investigate how it could have been adjusted at runtime, and verify it is not set improperly in "/etc/sysctl.conf". If the correct value is not returned, this is a finding.

Check Text ( C-RHEL-06-000078_chk )

The status of the "kernel.randomize_va_space" kernel parameter can be queried by running the following command:

$ sysctl kernel.randomize_va_space

The output of the command should indicate a value of "1". If this value is not the default value, investigate how it could have been adjusted at runtime, and verify it is not set improperly in "/etc/sysctl.conf".
If the correct value is not returned, this is a finding.

Fix Text (F-RHEL-06-000078_fix)
To set the runtime status of the "kernel.randomize_va_space" kernel parameter, run the following command: # sysctl -w kernel.randomize_va_space=1 If this is not the system's default value, add the following line to "/etc/sysctl.conf": kernel.randomize_va_space = 1