USN-4486-1: Linux kernel vulnerability

2 September 2020

The Linux kernel could be made to crash if it mounted a malicious XFS file system.

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Details

Wen Xu discovered that the XFS filesystem implementation in the Linux
kernel did not properly validate meta-data information. An attacker could
use this to construct a malicious xfs image that, when mounted, could cause
a denial of service (system crash).

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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 16.04
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.
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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