USN-659-1: Linux kernel vulnerabilities

27 October 2008

Linux kernel vulnerabilities

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Details

It was discovered that the direct-IO subsystem did not correctly validate
certain structures. A local attacker could exploit this to cause a system
crash, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2007-6716)

It was discovered that the disabling of the ZERO_PAGE optimization could
lead to large memory consumption. A local attacker could exploit this to
allocate all available memory, leading to a denial of service.
(CVE-2008-2372)

It was discovered that the Datagram Congestion Control Protocol (DCCP) did
not correctly validate its arguments. If DCCP was in use, a remote attacker
could send specially crafted network traffic and cause a system crash,
leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2008-3276)

It was discovered that the SBNI WAN driver did not correctly check for the
NET_ADMIN capability. A malicious local root user lacking CAP_NET_ADMIN
would be able to change the WAN device configuration, leading to a denial
of service. (CVE-2008-3525)

It was discovered that the Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) did
not correctly validate the key length in the SCTP_AUTH_KEY option. If SCTP
is in use, a remote attacker could send specially crafted network traffic
that would crash the system, leading to a denial of service.
(CVE-2008-3526)

It was discovered that the tmpfs implementation did not correctly handle
certain sequences of inode operations. A local attacker could exploit this
to crash the system, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2008-3534)

It was discovered that the readv/writev functions did not correctly handle
certain sequences of file operations. A local attacker could exploit this
to crash the system, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2008-3535)

It was discovered that SCTP did not correctly validate its userspace
arguments. A local attacker could call certain sctp_* functions with
malicious options and cause a system crash, leading to a denial of service.
(CVE-2008-3792, CVE-2008-4113, CVE-2008-4445)

It was discovered the the i915 video driver did not correctly validate
memory addresses. A local attacker could exploit this to remap memory
that could cause a system crash, leading to a denial of service.
(CVE-2008-3831)

Johann Dahm and David Richter discovered that NFSv4 did not correctly
handle certain file ACLs. If NFSv4 is in use, a local attacker could create
a malicious ACL that could cause a system crash, leading to a denial of
service. (CVE-2008-3915)

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Update instructions

The problem can be corrected by updating your system to the following package versions:

Ubuntu 8.04
Ubuntu 7.10
Ubuntu 6.06

After a standard system upgrade you need to reboot your computer to
effect the necessary changes.

ATTENTION: For systems without the hardy-updates pocket enabled, the 8.04
kernel update will include an unavoidable ABI change. The kernel update
has been given a new version number, which requires you to recompile and
reinstall all third party kernel modules you might have installed. If
you use linux-restricted-modules, you have to update that package as
well to get modules which work with the new kernel version. Unless you
manually uninstalled the standard kernel metapackages (e.g. linux-386,
linux-powerpc, linux-amd64-generic), a standard system upgrade will
automatically perform this as well.

References

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