STIGUI
V-282507CAT II — Medium severitySV-282507r1200501_rule

TOSS 5 must restrict exposed kernel pointer addresses access.

Rule version TOSS-05-000101 · STIG v1 · 2026-08-20

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, SRG-OS-000433-GPOS-00193

Check

Verify the runtime status of the "kernel.kptr_restrict" kernel parameter using the following command:

$ sudo sysctl kernel.kptr_restrict 

kernel.kptr_restrict = 1

If "kernel.kptr_restrict" is not set to "1" or is missing, this is a finding.

Fix

Add or edit the following line in a system configuration file in the "/etc/sysctl.d/" directory:

kernel.kptr_restrict = 1

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

$ sudo sysctl --system

Identifiers

Group ID
V-282507
Group title
SRG-OS-000132-GPOS-00067
Rule ID
SV-282507r1200501_rule
Check ID
C-87068r1200499_chk
Fix ID
F-86973r1200500_fix