Description

The /dev/shm is a traditional shared memory concept. One program will create a memory portion, which other processes (if permitted) can access. If /dev/shm is not configured, tmpfs will be mounted to /dev/shm by systemd.

Rationale

Any user can upload and execute files inside the /dev/shm similar to the /tmp partition. Configuring /dev/shm allows an administrator to set the noexec option on the mount, making /dev/shm useless for an attacker to install executable code. It would also prevent an attacker from establishing a hardlink to a system setuid program and wait for it to be updated. Once the program was updated, the hardlink would be broken and the attacker would have his own copy of the program. If the program happened to have a security vulnerability, the attacker could continue to exploit the known flaw.

Warning

This rule does not have a remedation. It is expected that this will be managed by systemd and will be a tmpfs partition.