Restrict Core Dumps A core dump is the memory of an executable program. It is generally used to determine why a program aborted. It can also be used to glean confidential information from a core file. The system provides the ability to set a soft limit for core dumps, but this can be overridden by the user.

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Setting a hard limit on core dumps prevents users from overriding the soft variable. If core dumps are required, consider setting limits for user groups (see limits.conf(5)). In addition, setting the fs.suid_dumpable variable to 0 will prevent setuid programs from dumping core. The apport service if active will override the fs.suid_dumpable variable setting and automatically create core dump reports. The whoopsie service monitors apport core dump reports and transmits them to Canonical. Fix: Add the following line to the /etc/security/limits.conf file. * hard core 0 Add the following line to the /etc/sysctl.conf file. fs.suid_dumpable = 0 Uninstall the apport and whoopsie packages or comment out any start lines in /etc/init/apport.conf and /etc/init/whoopsie.conf files: # start on runlevel [2345]