Important: kernel security and bug fix update

Synopsis

Important: kernel security and bug fix update

Type/Severity

Security Advisory: Important

Topic

An update for kernel is now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.

Red Hat Product Security has rated this update as having a security impact of Important. A Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base score, which gives a detailed severity rating, is available for each vulnerability from the CVE link(s) in the References section.

Description

The kernel packages contain the Linux kernel, the core of any Linux operating system.

Security Fix(es):

• A flaw named FragmentSmack was found in the way the Linux kernel handled reassembly of fragmented IPv4 and IPv6 packets. A remote attacker could use this flaw to trigger time and calculation expensive fragment reassembly algorithm by sending specially crafted packets which could lead to a CPU saturation and hence a denial of service on the system. (CVE-2018-5391)
  
• kernel: Integer overflow in Linux's create_elf_tables function (CVE-2018-14634)
  

For more details about the security issue(s), including the impact, a CVSS score, and other related information, refer to the CVE page(s) listed in the References section.

Red Hat would like to thank Juha-Matti Tilli (Aalto University - Department of Communications and Networking and Nokia Bell Labs) for reporting CVE-2018-5391 and Qualys Research Labs for reporting CVE-2018-14634.

Bug Fix(es):

These updated kernel packages include also numerous bug fixes. Space precludes documenting all of the bug fixes in this advisory. See the descriptions in the related Knowledge Article:

https://access.redhat.com/articles/3635371

Solution

For details on how to apply this update, which includes the changes described in this advisory, refer to:

https://access.redhat.com/articles/11258

The system must be rebooted for this update to take effect.

Affected Products

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 6 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 6 ppc64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Scientific Computing 6 x86_64

Fixes

• BZ - 1609664 - CVE-2018-5391 kernel: IP fragments with random offsets allow a remote denial of service (FragmentSmack)
• BZ - 1616397 - kernel-2.6.32-754.3.5.el6.x86_64 crash on Dell Inc. PowerEdge 1950
• BZ - 1624498 - CVE-2018-14634 kernel: Integer overflow in Linux's create_elf_tables function

CVEs

• CVE-2018-5391
• CVE-2018-14634

References

• https://access.redhat.com/security/updates/classification/#important
• https://access.redhat.com/articles/3635371