About preparation of binaries. Some security features of preparation of Red Hat EL4 are 
mentioned in this document:

http://people.redhat.com/drepper/nonselsec.pdf



Also in this Red Hat EL5 "What's new" document:

http://www.redhat.com/f/pdf/rhel/rhel5_whatsnew.pdf


it is mentioned:

"Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 is built using the latest version of the industry-standard GNU 
Compiler Collection toolchain. The distribution is built using the fortify-source compiler 
flag, which provides more stringent run-time buffer bounds checking, thereby adding to 
overall system security."



This is what has happened to come across. I haven't searched thoroughly for preparation 
security options.