USN-4313-1: Linux kernel vulnerability

30 March 2020

The system could be made to expose sensitive information or run programs as an administrator.

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Releases

Packages

Details

Manfred Paul discovered that the bpf verifier in the Linux kernel did not
properly calculate register bounds for certain operations. A local attacker
could use this to expose sensitive information (kernel memory) or gain
administrative privileges.

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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 19.10
Ubuntu 18.04

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

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Further reading