USN-3256-2: Linux kernel (HWE) vulnerability

5 April 2017

The system could be made to crash under certain conditions.

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Releases

Packages

Details

USN-3256-1 fixed vulnerabilities in the Linux kernel for Ubuntu
14.04 LTS, Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, and Ubuntu 16.10. This update provides
the corresponding updates for the Linux Hardware Enablement (HWE)
kernel for each of the respective prior Ubuntu LTS releases.

Andrey Konovalov discovered that the AF_PACKET implementation in the Linux
kernel did not properly validate certain block-size data. A local attacker
could use this to cause a denial of service (system crash).

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Update instructions

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

Ubuntu 16.04
Ubuntu 14.04
Ubuntu 12.04

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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