What is "kinsmod"

kinsmod is a program written by Silvio Cesare which, in the Linux operating system, allows the insertion of a potentially malicious Loadable kernel module by writing to the /dev/kmem device, regardless of whether the kernel has been compiled with Loadable kernel module support. The Grsecurity Linux kernel patch-set provides a safe guard against this security risk, providing an option "Deny writing to /dev/kmem". Note that on a correctly configured system only trusted users (normally only the administrator) are permitted to write to the /dev/kmem device and using kinsmod does not give a potential attacker any advantage.