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USN-2691-1: Linux kernel vulnerabilities

28 July 2015

Several security issues were fixed in the kernel.

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Details

Andy Lutomirski discovered a flaw in the Linux kernel's handling of nested
NMIs (non-maskable interrupts). An unprivileged local user could exploit
this flaw to cause a denial of service (system crash) or potentially
escalate their privileges. (CVE-2015-3290)

Colin King discovered a flaw in the add_key function of the Linux kernel's
keyring subsystem. A local user could exploit this flaw to cause a denial
of service (memory exhaustion). (CVE-2015-1333)

Andy Lutomirski discovered a flaw that allows user to cause the Linux
kernel to ignore some NMIs (non-maskable interrupts). A local unprivileged
user could exploit this flaw to potentially cause the system to miss
important NMIs resulting in unspecified effects. (CVE-2015-3291)

Andy Lutomirski and Petr Matousek discovered that an NMI (non-maskable
interrupt) that interrupts userspace and encounters an IRET fault is
incorrectly handled by the Linux kernel. An unprivileged local user could
exploit this flaw to cause a denial of service (kernel OOPs), corruption,
or potentially escalate privileges on the system. (CVE-2015-5157)

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Update instructions

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

Ubuntu 15.04

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-2688-1: linux-image-extra-3.13.0-59-generic, linux, linux-image-3.13.0-59-powerpc-e500, linux-image-3.13.0-59-generic, linux-image-3.13.0-59-powerpc-e500mc, linux-image-3.13.0-59-powerpc-smp, linux-image-3.13.0-59-powerpc64-emb, linux-image-3.13.0-59-lowlatency, linux-image-3.13.0-59-powerpc64-smp, linux-image-3.13.0-59-generic-lpae
  • USN-2690-1: linux-image-3.19.0-25-powerpc-smp, linux-image-3.19.0-25-generic-lpae, linux-image-3.19.0-25-lowlatency, linux-image-3.19.0-25-powerpc-e500mc, linux-image-3.19.0-25-powerpc64-smp, linux-image-extra-3.19.0-25-generic, linux-image-3.19.0-25-generic, linux-lts-vivid, linux-image-3.19.0-25-powerpc64-emb
  • USN-2687-1: linux-lts-trusty, linux-image-3.13.0-59-generic-lpae, linux-image-3.13.0-59-generic
  • USN-2689-1: linux-image-3.16.0-45-powerpc64-smp, linux-image-3.16.0-45-generic, linux-image-3.16.0-45-powerpc-smp, linux-image-3.16.0-45-generic-lpae, linux-lts-utopic, linux-image-3.16.0-45-powerpc64-emb, linux-image-extra-3.16.0-45-generic, linux-image-3.16.0-45-powerpc-e500mc, linux-image-3.16.0-45-lowlatency
  • USN-2700-1: linux, linux-image-3.13.0-61-powerpc64-emb, linux-image-3.13.0-61-powerpc-e500mc, linux-image-3.13.0-61-powerpc-smp, linux-image-3.13.0-61-lowlatency, linux-image-3.13.0-61-powerpc-e500, linux-image-extra-3.13.0-61-generic, linux-image-3.13.0-61-powerpc64-smp, linux-image-3.13.0-61-generic-lpae, linux-image-3.13.0-61-generic

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