USN-2776-1: Linux kernel vulnerabilities

19 October 2015

Several security issues were fixed in the kernel.

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Details

It was discovered that the Linux kernel did not check if a new IPv6 MTU set
by a user space application was valid. A remote attacker could forge a
route advertisement with an invalid MTU that a user space daemon like
NetworkManager would honor and apply to the kernel, causing a denial of
service. (CVE-2015-0272)

It was discovered that virtio networking in the Linux kernel did not handle
fragments correctly, leading to kernel memory corruption. A remote attacker
could use this to cause a denial of service (system crash) or possibly
execute code with administrative privileges. (CVE-2015-5156)

It was discovered that the Reliable Datagram Sockets (RDS) implementation
in the Linux kernel did not verify sockets were properly bound before
attempting to send a message, which could cause a NULL pointer dereference.
An attacker could use this to cause a denial of service (system crash).
(CVE-2015-6937)

Ben Hutchings discovered that the Advanced Union Filesystem (aufs) for the
Linux kernel did not correctly handle references of memory mapped files
from an aufs mount. A local attacker could use this to cause a denial of
service (system crash) or possibly execute arbitrary code with
administrative privileges. (CVE-2015-7312)

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Update instructions

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

Ubuntu 14.04

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

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