OL 9 must implement nonexecutable data to protect its memory from unauthorized code execution.

Severity	Group ID	Group Title	Version	Rule ID	Date	STIG Version
medium	V-271760	SRG-OS-000433-GPOS-00192	OL09-00-002422	SV-271760r1091992_rule	2025-05-08	1

Description
ExecShield uses the segmentation feature on all x86 systems to prevent execution in memory higher than a certain address. It writes an address as a limit in the code segment descriptor, to control where code can be executed, on a per-process basis. When the kernel places a process's memory regions such as the stack and heap higher than this address, the hardware prevents execution in that address range. This is enabled by default on the latest Oracle systems if supported by the hardware.

Description

ExecShield uses the segmentation feature on all x86 systems to prevent execution in memory higher than a certain address. It writes an address as a limit in the code segment descriptor, to control where code can be executed, on a per-process basis. When the kernel places a process's memory regions such as the stack and heap higher than this address, the hardware prevents execution in that address range. This is enabled by default on the latest Oracle systems if supported by the hardware.

ℹ️ Check
Verify that OL 9 ExecShield is enabled on 64-bit systems with the following command: $ sudo dmesg \| grep '[NX\|DX]*protection' [ 0.000000] NX (Execute Disable) protection: active If "dmesg" does not show "NX (Execute Disable) protection" active, this is a finding.

✔️ Fix
Update the GRUB 2 bootloader configuration. Run the following command: $ sudo grubby --update-kernel=ALL --remove-args=noexec