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 5.

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 use-after-free vulnerability was found in the kernels socket recvmmsg
  subsystem. This may allows remote attackers to corrupt memory and may allow
  execution of arbitrary code. This corruption takes place during the error
  handling routines within __sys_recvmmsg() function. (CVE-2016-7117, Important)
  

Bug Fix(es):

• Previously, guest virtual machines (VMs) on a Hyper-V server cluster got in
  some cases rebooted during the graceful node failover test, because the host
  kept sending heartbeat packets independently of guests responding to them. This
  update fixes the bug by properly responding to all the heartbeat messages in the
  queue, even if they are pending. As a result, guest VMs no longer get rebooted
  under the described circumstances. (BZ#1391167)
  

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 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 5 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 5 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 5 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 5 ppc

Fixes

• BZ - 1382268 - CVE-2016-7117 kernel: Use-after-free in the recvmmsg exit path

CVEs

• CVE-2016-7117

References

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