USN-3484-3: Linux kernel (GCP) vulnerability

21 November 2017

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

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Releases

Packages

  • linux-gcp - Linux kernel for Google Cloud Platform (GCP) systems

Details

It was discovered that the KVM subsystem in the Linux kernel did not
properly keep track of nested levels in guest page tables. A local attacker
in a guest VM could use this to cause a denial of service (host OS crash)
or possibly execute arbitrary code in the host OS.

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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.

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Update instructions

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

Ubuntu 16.04

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.
Unless you manually uninstalled the standard kernel metapackages
(e.g. linux-generic, linux-generic-lts-RELEASE, linux-virtual,
linux-powerpc), a standard system upgrade will automatically perform
this as well.

References

Related notices

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