Alexander Nyberg discovered an integer overflow in the sysfs_write_file() function. A local attacker could exploit this to crash the kernel or possibly even execute arbitrary code with root privileges by writing to an user-writable file in /sys under certain low-memory conditions. However, there are very few cases where a user-writeable sysfs file actually exists. (CAN-2005-0867)
Olof Johansson discovered a Denial of Service vulnerability in the futex functions, which provide semaphores for exclusive locking of resources. A local attacker could possibly exploit this to cause a kernel deadlock. (CAN-2005-0937)
11 April 2005
A security issue affects these releases of Ubuntu and its derivatives:
Alexander Nyberg discovered an integer overflow in the sysfs_write_file() function. A local attacker could exploit this to crash the kernel or possibly even execute arbitrary code with root privileges by writing to an user-writable file in /sys under certain low-memory conditions. However, there are very few cases where a user-writeable sysfs file actually exists. (CAN-2005-0867)
Olof Johansson discovered a Denial of Service vulnerability in the futex functions, which provide semaphores for exclusive locking of resources. A local attacker could possibly exploit this to cause a kernel deadlock. (CAN-2005-0937)
In addition this update fixes two race conditions in the ext3 and jfs file system drivers, which could lead to a kernel crash under certain (unusual) conditions. However, these cannot easily be triggered by users, thus they are not security sensitive. (http://linux.bkbits.net:8080/linux-2.5/gnupatch@4248d87aETPJX79hVXl4owAUwu2SmQ, http://linux.bkbits.net:8080/linux-2.6/cset@1.2181.46.242)
The problem can be corrected by updating your system to the following package versions:
To update your system, please follow these instructions: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Security/Upgrades.
Vulmon