GNU Binutils 2.39 Released - ELF Linker Now Warns If A Stack Is Made Executable

Following the release of GNU Glibc 2.36 earlier this week, GNU Binutils 2.39 released today for this common set of binary utilities on open-source systems.

Most notable with GNU Binutils 2.39 is that the ELF linker will now generate a warning if a stack is made executable. The linker will now also warn if the output binary contains a segment with all three read / write / execute permission bits set. These warnings are to help developers identify software that may be vulnerable to attack from the executable memory regions. These warnings with Binutils 2.39 are enabled by default but can be disabled via new command-line switches.

GNU Binutils 2.39 also adds a "--package-metadata" option to the ELF linker for embedding a JSON payload in support of the Package Metadata specification. Meanwhile Binutils' objdump program now supports colored syntax highlighting in its disassembler output.

GNU Binutils 2.39 also has other improvements as laid out in the release announcement.