Hardened Malloc - Hardened Memory Allocator

Wondering if hardend malloc can be combined with flatpak.


On the host:

cat /proc/$$/maps | grep malloc

[…] /usr/lib/libhardened_malloc.so/libhardened_malloc_kicksecure.so


Run a shell for debugging purposes inside flatpak.

flatpak run --command=bash org.chromium.Chromium

See if hardend malloc Kcksecure is loaded.

cat /proc/$$/maps | grep malloc

No, it’s not.


Trying to ld preload hardened malloc Kicksecure using environment variable inside flatpak.

flatpak run --env=LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libhardened_malloc.so/libhardened_malloc_kicksecure.so org.chromium.Chromium

ERROR: ld.so: object ‘/usr/lib/libhardened_malloc.so/libhardened_malloc_kicksecure.so’ from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (cannot open shared object file): ignored.


Any ideas?

Not sure that makes sense for Chromium. Which allocator is more secure, Chromium’s built-in or Hardened Malloc (Kicksecure)?

But even if it doesn’t make sense for Chromium, would be useful to know generally for other applications from flatpak.