STIGUI
V-271747CAT II — Medium severitySV-271747r1198253_rule

OL 9 must restrict exposed kernel pointer addresses access.

Rule version OL09-00-002408 · STIG v1 · 2026-08-21

Discussion

Exposing kernel pointers (through procfs or "seq_printf()") exposes kernel writeable structures, which may contain functions pointers. If a write vulnerability occurs in the kernel, allowing write access to any of this structure, the kernel can be compromised. This option disallows any program without the CAP_SYSLOG capability to get the addresses of kernel pointers by replacing them with "0".

Satisfies: SRG-OS-000132-GPOS-00067, SRG-OS-000433-GPOS-00192

Check

Verify that OL 9 restricts access to exposed kernel pointers with the following command:

$ sysctl kernel.kptr_restrict kernel.kptr_restrict = 1

Fix

Configure OL 9 to prevent the leak of kernel pointers to unprivileged users.

Add or edit the following line in /etc/sysctl.d/99-sysctl.conf system configuration file:

kernel.kptr_restrict = 1

Reload settings from all system configuration files with the following command:

$ sudo sysctl --system

Identifiers

Group ID
V-271747
Group title
SRG-OS-000132-GPOS-00067
Rule ID
SV-271747r1198253_rule
Check ID
C-75797r1091951_chk
Fix ID
F-75704r1091952_fix