The number of user-land exploitation countermeasures outweighs the kernel protection mechanisms implemented by most modern distributions. Due to the complexity associated with exploiting user-land vulnerabilities, Linux kernel, with its huge publicly available codebase, has become an appealing target for exploit developers. A successful exploitation of a kernel vulnerability generally results in privilege escalation bypassing any user-land protections and exploit mitigations implemented by the OS.
This course teachers common kernel exploitation techniques on modern Linux distributions (x86_x64 architecture and 3.x/4.x kernels). It provides up-to-date information on current kernel hardening implementations and exploit mitigations. It is designed for students already familiar with user-land exploitation who want to play with the heart of the OS and gain fundamental knowledge required to develop reliable and effective kernel exploits. The course is structured as several theory modules (providing the necessary background material), followed by hands-on lab exercises demonstrating learned concepts in practice.
Even though this course is designed for beginners in kernel exploitation, a number of more advanced topics, such as reliable exploitation of heap vulnerabilities and SMEP/SMAP/KPTI bypasses, are discussed. The last day covers the more advanced material related to heap vulnerabilities and race conditions in the kernel. This course primarily concentrates on the exploitation phase, though some guidelines for vulnerability analysis will be discussed as well. The goal of this training is to demonstrate general exploitation concepts that can be applied to common classes of kernel memory corruption vulnerabilities.
The three-day course covers the necessary kernel exploitation background starting from various privilege escalation techniques to SMAP bypasses. The four-day version of this course is more advanced and focuses on bypasses for current kernel exploitation mitigations (software and hardware) with more advanced topics such as exploitation in interrupt context.
This course is largely self-contained but please ensure you meet the entry requirements detailed below.