I did something recently I haven’t done in a long time: I recompiled the Linux kernel. There was a time when this was a common occurrence. You might want a feature that the default kernel didn’t ...

Many useful computer security tool ideas have a common genesis: the cracker world. Tools, like port scanners and password crackers, originally designed to aid black-hats in their attempts to ...

Security modules watch the rest of the Linux system for intruders, but if they’re dynamically loadable, qui custodiet ipsos custodes? The ever-contentious Linux Security Modules (LSM) API is being ...

At the 2001 Linux Kernel Summit, NSA developers presented their work on Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux) and emphasized the need for enhanced security support in the main Linux kernel. In the ensuing ...

Members of the open source community are working on a new security-focused project for the Linux kernel. Named Linux Kernel Runtime Guard (LKRG), this is a loadable kernel module that will perform ...

The kernel puts limits on which functions can be used from a loadable module. But instead of an all-or-none approach, one plan would create access control lists of which modules are allowed to use ...

Configuration is the first step in building a kernel. There are many ways and various options to choose from. The kernel will generate a .config file at the end of the process and generate a series of ...