Forum Discussion

Kent_Perrier_50's avatar
Kent_Perrier_50
Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
Feb 28, 2011

Consequences of hiding the NX/DX flag

Our VM admins want us to hide the NX/DX flag from all of our VMs. The OVA files comes with it exposed to the guest. What are the implications of hiding that flag?

 

 

Kent

 

ve
virtualization

2 Replies

Sort By
  • hwidjaja_37598's avatar
    hwidjaja_37598
    Icon for Altostratus rankAltostratus
    Mar 01, 2011
    I don't think there is any consequence of hiding this flag. It's not used for a performance boost but more towards security feature *CMIIW*

     

     

    Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NX_bit :

     

     

    NX/DX is used to mark certain areas of memory as non-executable so CPU will refuse to execute any code residing this area. This technique is used to prevent a malicious software from inserting their code into another program's data storage area and running their own code from within this section (aka. buffer overflow attack).