NVIDIA engineer Sasha Levin has proposed a new mechanism for the Linux kernel that would let administrators quickly disable flawed functions on live systems. The patch, called killswitch, aims to mitigate privilege escalation risks without waiting for full fixes. It remains under review on the Linux Kernel Mailing List.
Sasha Levin, a co-maintainer of the stable and long-term support kernel trees, submitted the patch following concerns over vulnerabilities such as Copy Fail and Dirty Frag. The tool would allow root users to specify a function name and a return value, causing the function to exit immediately without executing its code. This approach could apply instantly across all CPU cores and persist until disabled or the system restarts.
