Attacking hardened Linux systems with kernel JIT spraying

"I'll admit that this is mostly a curiosity, for two reasons:

SMEP is not widely deployed yet.
The BPF JIT is disabled by default, and distributions don't enable it.
Unless Intel abandons SMEP in subsequent processors, it will be widespread within a few years. It's less clear that the BPF JIT will ever catch on as a default configuration. But I'll note in passing that Linux is now using BPF programs for process sandboxing as well."

Also:

"I don't have a CPU with SMEP, but I did try a grsecurity / PaX hardened kernel. PaX's KERNEXEC feature implements3 in software a policy very similar to SMEP. And indeed, the JIT spray exploit succeeds where a traditional jump-to-userspace fails. (grsecurity has other features that would mitigate this attack, like the ability to lock out users who oops the kernel.)"