Upstream Kernel Hardening: Recent Progress and Challenges

Overview: With the release of Linux 7.0, Rust is no longer considered experimental. New and safer components are expected to be written in Rust in the near future. However, the Linux kernel still contains more than 35 million lines of code written in C. This code will remain critical for years to come and, for the benefit of everyone, must continue to be maintained, improved, and hardened where possible. In the Linux Kernel Self-Protection Project, we have been advancing kernel hardening upstream for seve

Key Topics: ral years. In this presentation, we review recent hardening efforts and discuss the challenges we continue to face as we work toward our ultimate goal of eliminating classes of bugs and methods of exploitation in the upstream Linux kernel.