USN-752-1: Linux kernel vulnerabilities

7 April 2009

Linux kernel vulnerabilities

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Releases

Packages

Details

NFS did not correctly handle races between fcntl and interrupts. A local
attacker on an NFS mount could consume unlimited kernel memory, leading to
a denial of service. (CVE-2008-4307)

Sparc syscalls did not correctly check mmap regions. A local attacker could
cause a system panic, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2008-6107)

In certain situations, cloned processes were able to send signals to parent
processes, crossing privilege boundaries. A local attacker could send
arbitrary signals to parent processes, leading to a denial of service.
(CVE-2009-0028)

The 64-bit syscall interfaces did not correctly handle sign extension. A
local attacker could make malicious syscalls, possibly gaining root
privileges. The x86_64 architecture was not affected. (CVE-2009-0029)

The SCTP stack did not correctly validate FORWARD-TSN packets. A remote
attacker could send specially crafted SCTP traffic causing a system crash,
leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2009-0065)

The Dell platform device did not correctly validate user parameters. A
local attacker could perform specially crafted reads to crash the system,
leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2009-0322)

Network interfaces statistics for the SysKonnect FDDI driver did not check
capabilities. A local user could reset statistics, potentially interfering
with packet accounting systems. (CVE-2009-0675)

The getsockopt function did not correctly clear certain parameters. A local
attacker could read leaked kernel memory, leading to a loss of privacy.
(CVE-2009-0676)

The syscall interface did not correctly validate parameters when crossing
the 64-bit/32-bit boundary. A local attacker could bypass certain syscall
restricts via crafted syscalls. (CVE-2009-0834, CVE-2009-0835)

The shared memory subsystem did not correctly handle certain shmctl calls
when CONFIG_SHMEM was disabled. Ubuntu kernels were not vulnerable, since
CONFIG_SHMEM is enabled by default. (CVE-2009-0859)

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 6.06

After a standard system upgrade you need to reboot your computer to
effect 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.

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