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  4. Ensure noexec option set on /dev/shm partition

Ensure noexec option set on /dev/shm partition

Details

The noexec mount option specifies that the filesystem cannot contain executable binaries.

Rationale:

Setting this option on a file system prevents users from executing programs from shared memory. This deters users from introducing potentially malicious software on the system.

Solution

Edit the /etc/fstab file and add noexec to the fourth field (mounting options) for the /dev/shm partition. See the fstab(5) manual page for more information.
Run the following command to remount /dev/shm:

# mount -o remount,noexec,nodev,nosuid /dev/shm

Additional Information:

/dev/shm is mounted automatically by systemd. /dev/shm needs to be added to /etc/fstab to add mount options even though it is already being mounted on boot.

Supportive Information

The following resource is also helpful.

This security hardening control applies to the following category of controls within NIST 800-53: Access Control, Configuration Management, Identification and Authentication, Media Protection.This control applies to the following type of system Unix.

References

Source

Updated on July 16, 2022
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