Beyond Control: Exploring Novel File System Objects for Data-Only Attacks on Linux Systems

This research identifies how attackers can exploit non-control data in the Linux kernel's file system (the part of the OS that manages files and folders) to gain unauthorized access, even when control-flow integrity (a security technique that prevents attackers from hijacking program execution paths) is in place. The study developed a framework to automatically find vulnerable data objects and demonstrated 10 working attacks against the kernel with modern security protections enabled.