diff --git a/arch/um/kernel/dyn.lds.S b/arch/um/kernel/dyn.lds.S
index 32b60272a4fa..31adf9451507 100644
--- a/arch/um/kernel/dyn.lds.S
+++ b/arch/um/kernel/dyn.lds.S
@@ -24,9 +24,8 @@ SECTIONS
   INIT_TEXT_SECTION(PAGE_SIZE)
 
   init.data : { INIT_DATA }
-  __init_end = .;
-
   . = ALIGN(PAGE_SIZE);
+  __init_end = .;
 
   /* Read-only sections, merged into text segment: */
   .hash           : { *(.hash) }
diff --git a/arch/um/kernel/mem.c b/arch/um/kernel/mem.c
index bc03bf3d114d..2219827ac3ad 100644
--- a/arch/um/kernel/mem.c
+++ b/arch/um/kernel/mem.c
@@ -83,12 +83,17 @@ void __init arch_zone_limits_init(unsigned long *max_zone_pfns)
 }
 
 /*
- * This can't do anything because nothing in the kernel image can be freed
- * since it's not in kernel physical memory.
+ * We could munmap() this instead, but then libc allocations could
+ * land in this area and stray initdata access could erroneously
+ * succeed - just mprotect() it to reliably catch bad accesses.
  */
-
 void free_initmem(void)
 {
+	unsigned long start = PAGE_ALIGN((unsigned long)__init_begin);
+	unsigned long end = round_down((unsigned long)__init_end, PAGE_SIZE);
+
+	if (end > start)
+		os_protect_memory((void *)start, end - start, 0, 0, 0);
 }
 
 void *uml_kmalloc(int size, int flags)
diff --git a/arch/um/kernel/uml.lds.S b/arch/um/kernel/uml.lds.S
index 7a6de1c74d6d..4aabcb7faa38 100644
--- a/arch/um/kernel/uml.lds.S
+++ b/arch/um/kernel/uml.lds.S
@@ -32,6 +32,7 @@ SECTIONS
   INIT_TEXT_SECTION(0)
 
   init.data : { INIT_DATA }
+  . = ALIGN(PAGE_SIZE);
   __init_end = .;
 
   .text      :