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SQ14107

Detected Windows executable files that try to implement ASLR but do not have relocations to support that vulnerability mitigation protection.

priorityCI/CD statusseverityeffortRL levelRL assessment
passhighlowNonehardening: warning
Reason: ineffective mitigations found

About the issue​

Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) is a vulnerability mitigation option that forces software components to load on a different memory base address each time they are used. This mitigation is detected as enabled, but rendered ineffective due to the lack of code relocations necessary for layout randomization. This issue is reported for native 32-bit applications that contain code and opt in to use ASLR. Reasons for relocation absence include forcing software component load on a fixed address, removing relocations post-build, and using non-ASLR-compliant executable packing solutions.

How to resolve the issue​

  • Review the programming language linker documentation.
  • In Microsoft VisualStudio, make sure the linker option /FIXED is disabled (set to OFF).

Incidence statistics​

ReversingLabs periodically collects and analyzes the contents of popular software package repositories for threat research purposes.

For every repository, the chart shows the percentage of projects that triggered the software assurance policy. In other words, it shows how many projects were found to have the specific issue described on this page.

The percentages are calculated from the total amount of packages analyzed:

  • RubyGems: 174K
  • Nuget: 189K
  • PyPi: 403K
  • NPM: 2.1M