Linux default behavior against `.data` section

Question

Story

Case 1

I accidentally wrote my Assembly code in the .data section. I compiled it and executed it. The program ran normally under Linux <

Answer 1

Your binary is missing PT_GNU_STACK. As such, this change appears to have been caused by commit 9fccc5c0c99f238aa1b0460fccbdb30a887e7036:

From 9fccc5c0c99f238aa1b0460fccbdb30a887e7036 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Kees Cook 
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2020 23:48:17 -0700
Subject: x86/elf: Disable automatic READ_IMPLIES_EXEC on 64-bit

With modern x86 64-bit environments, there should never be a need for
automatic READ_IMPLIES_EXEC, as the architecture is intended to always
be execute-bit aware (as in, the default memory protection should be NX
unless a region explicitly requests to be executable).

There were very old x86_64 systems that lacked the NX bit, but for those,
the NX bit is, obviously, unenforceable, so these changes should have
no impact on them.

Suggested-by: Hector Marco-Gisbert 
Signed-off-by: Kees Cook 
Signed-off-by: Borislav Petkov 
Reviewed-by: Jason Gunthorpe 
Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20200327064820.12602-4-keescook@chromium.org
---
 arch/x86/include/asm/elf.h | 4 ++--
 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/arch/x86/include/asm/elf.h b/arch/x86/include/asm/elf.h
index 397a1c74433ec..452beed7892bb 100644
--- a/arch/x86/include/asm/elf.h
+++ b/arch/x86/include/asm/elf.h
@@ -287,7 +287,7 @@ extern u32 elf_hwcap2;
  *                 CPU: | lacks NX*  | has NX, ia32     | has NX, x86_64 |
  * ELF:                 |            |                  |                |
  * ---------------------|------------|------------------|----------------|
- * missing PT_GNU_STACK | exec-all   | exec-all         | exec-all       |
+ * missing PT_GNU_STACK | exec-all   | exec-all         | exec-none      |
  * PT_GNU_STACK == RWX  | exec-stack | exec-stack       | exec-stack     |
  * PT_GNU_STACK == RW   | exec-none  | exec-none        | exec-none      |
  *
@@ -303,7 +303,7 @@ extern u32 elf_hwcap2;
  *
  */
 #define elf_read_implies_exec(ex, executable_stack)    \
-   (executable_stack == EXSTACK_DEFAULT)
+   (mmap_is_ia32() && executable_stack == EXSTACK_DEFAULT)
 
 struct task_struct;
 
-- 
cgit 1.2.3-1.el7

This was first present in the 5.8 series. See also Unexpected exec permission from mmap when assembly files included in the project.