USN-4135-1: Linux kernel vulnerabilities

18 September 2019

Several security issues were fixed in the Linux kernel.

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

  • linux - Linux kernel
  • linux-aws - Linux kernel for Amazon Web Services (AWS) systems
  • linux-aws-hwe - Linux kernel for Amazon Web Services (AWS-HWE) systems
  • linux-azure - Linux kernel for Microsoft Azure Cloud systems
  • linux-gcp - Linux kernel for Google Cloud Platform (GCP) systems
  • linux-gke-4.15 - Linux kernel for Google Container Engine (GKE) systems
  • linux-gke-5.0 - Linux kernel for Google Container Engine (GKE) systems
  • linux-hwe - Linux hardware enablement (HWE) kernel
  • linux-kvm - Linux kernel for cloud environments
  • linux-oem - Linux kernel for OEM processors
  • linux-oracle - Linux kernel for Oracle Cloud systems
  • linux-raspi2 - Linux kernel for Raspberry Pi 2
  • linux-snapdragon - Linux kernel for Snapdragon processors

Details

Peter Pi discovered a buffer overflow in the virtio network backend
(vhost_net) implementation in the Linux kernel. An attacker in a guest may
be able to use this to cause a denial of service (host OS crash) or
possibly execute arbitrary code in the host OS. (CVE-2019-14835)

It was discovered that the Linux kernel on PowerPC architectures did not
properly handle Facility Unavailable exceptions in some situations. A local
attacker could use this to expose sensitive information. (CVE-2019-15030)

It was discovered that the Linux kernel on PowerPC architectures did not
properly handle exceptions on interrupts in some situations. A local
attacker could use this to expose sensitive information. (CVE-2019-15031)

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 19.04
Ubuntu 18.04
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

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