LoongArch With Linux 6.3 Enhances Security With KASLR

Loongson engineers continue working to improve their MIPS64-derived, RISC-V-inspired LoongArch CPU architecture code. With the in-development Linux 6.3 kernel are yet more improvements, including now supporting Kernel Address Space Layout Randomization (KASLR) for better security.

The LoongArch CPU code with Linux 6.3 now allows support for kernel relocations, support for KASLR, a single kernel implementation for Kdump, hardware breakpoints/watchpoints support, and KProbes/KRetProbes support. There is also LoongArch support now for some kernel self-tests.

Kernel Address Space Layout Randomization support is important to help prevent exploits of memory corruption vulnerabilities and attacks relying upon known locations within the kernel memory. Most of the other CPU architectures with Linux have supported KASLR for some time while efforts like FGKASLR seek to improve it even further.

More details on the LoongArch changes to find with Linux 6.3 via this pull request.