Your submission was sent successfully! Close

Thank you for contacting us. A member of our team will be in touch shortly. Close

You have successfully unsubscribed! Close

Thank you for signing up for our newsletter!
In these regular emails you will find the latest updates about Ubuntu and upcoming events where you can meet our team.Close

USN-2598-1: Linux kernel vulnerability

5 May 2015

The system could be made to run programs as an administrator.

Reduce your security exposure

Ubuntu Pro provides ten-year security coverage to 25,000+ packages in Main and Universe repositories, and it is free for up to five machines.

Learn more about Ubuntu Pro

Releases

Packages

Details

A race condition between chown() and execve() was discovered in the Linux
kernel. A local attacker could exploit this race by using chown on a
setuid-user-binary to gain administrative privileges.

Reduce your security exposure

Ubuntu Pro provides ten-year security coverage to 25,000+ packages in Main and Universe repositories, and it is free for up to five machines.

Learn more about Ubuntu Pro

Update instructions

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

Ubuntu 14.04

After a standard system update you need to reboot your computer to make
all the necessary changes.

ATTENTION: Due to an unavoidable ABI change the kernel updates have
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-generic,
linux-server, linux-powerpc), a standard system upgrade will automatically
perform this as well.

References

Related notices

  • USN-2600-1: linux-image-3.16.0-37-powerpc64-emb, linux-image-3.16.0-37-generic, linux-image-3.16.0-37-generic-lpae, linux-image-3.16.0-37-lowlatency, linux-image-3.16.0-37-powerpc64-smp, linux-image-3.16.0-37-powerpc-e500mc, linux-image-3.16.0-37-powerpc-smp, linux
  • USN-2612-1: linux-image-3.2.0-1464-omap4, linux-ti-omap4
  • USN-2596-1: linux-image-3.2.0-83-generic, linux-image-3.2.0-83-powerpc-smp, linux-image-3.2.0-83-omap, linux-image-3.2.0-83-virtual, linux-image-3.2.0-83-powerpc64-smp, linux-image-3.2.0-83-generic-pae, linux-image-3.2.0-83-highbank, linux
  • USN-2583-1: linux-image-2.6.32-74-sparc64, linux-image-2.6.32-74-preempt, linux-image-2.6.32-74-sparc64-smp, linux-image-2.6.32-74-generic, linux-image-2.6.32-74-versatile, linux-image-2.6.32-74-ia64, linux-image-2.6.32-74-powerpc64-smp, linux-image-2.6.32-74-powerpc-smp, linux-image-2.6.32-74-server, linux-image-2.6.32-74-virtual, linux-image-2.6.32-74-386, linux-image-2.6.32-74-lpia, linux-image-2.6.32-74-powerpc, linux-image-2.6.32-74-generic-pae, linux
  • USN-2599-1: linux-image-3.16.0-37-powerpc64-emb, linux-image-3.16.0-37-generic, linux-image-3.16.0-37-generic-lpae, linux-image-3.16.0-37-lowlatency, linux-lts-utopic, linux-image-extra-3.16.0-37-generic, linux-image-3.16.0-37-powerpc64-smp, linux-image-3.16.0-37-powerpc-e500mc, linux-image-3.16.0-37-powerpc-smp
  • USN-2597-1: linux-image-3.13.0-52-generic, linux-lts-trusty, linux-image-3.13.0-52-generic-lpae
  • USN-2584-1: linux-image-2.6.32-377-ec2, linux-ec2
  • USN-2601-1: linux-image-3.19.0-16-powerpc-e500mc, linux-image-3.19.0-16-lowlatency, linux-image-3.19.0-16-generic, linux-image-3.19.0-16-generic-lpae, linux-image-3.19.0-16-powerpc64-emb, linux-image-3.19.0-16-powerpc-smp, linux-image-3.19.0-16-powerpc64-smp, linux

Join the discussion

Need help with your security needs?

Ubuntu Pro provides up to ten-year security coverage for over 23,000 open-source packages within the Ubuntu Main and Universe repositories.

Talk to an expert to find out what would work best for you

Further reading