Problem Statement
What is the W^X (Write XOR Execute) policy in operating systems and how does it enhance security?
Explanation
The W^X (Write XOR Execute) policy means that memory pages are never both writable and executable at the same time. In other words a page is either writable (data) or executable (code), but not both. This mitigates a class of attacks where malicious code writes into a memory region and then executes it (such as buffer‐overflow shellcode). Many modern OS kernels and user code runtimes enforce W^X, making it harder for attackers to exploit memory corruption vulnerabilities.
