linux vulnerabilities

Related Vulnerabilities: CVE-2012-4461   CVE-2012-4530   CVE-2012-5532  

Several security issues were fixed in the kernel.

Jon Howell reported a flaw in the Linux kernel’s KVM (Kernel-based virtual machine) subsystem’s handling of the XSAVE feature. On hosts, using qemu userspace, without the XSAVE feature an unprivileged local attacker could exploit this flaw to crash the system. (CVE-2012-4461)

18 January 2013

linux vulnerabilities

A security issue affects these releases of Ubuntu and its derivatives:

  • Ubuntu 12.04 LTS

Summary

Several security issues were fixed in the kernel.

Software Description

  • linux - Linux kernel

Details

Jon Howell reported a flaw in the Linux kernel’s KVM (Kernel-based virtual machine) subsystem’s handling of the XSAVE feature. On hosts, using qemu userspace, without the XSAVE feature an unprivileged local attacker could exploit this flaw to crash the system. (CVE-2012-4461)

A flaw was discovered in the Linux kernel’s handling of script execution when module loading is enabled. A local attacker could exploit this flaw to cause a leak of kernel stack contents. (CVE-2012-4530)

Florian Weimer discovered that hypervkvpd, which is distributed in the Linux kernel, was not correctly validating source addresses of netlink packets. An untrusted local user can cause a denial of service by causing hypervkvpd to exit. (CVE-2012-5532)

Update instructions

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

Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
linux-image-3.2.0-36-generic - 3.2.0-36.57
linux-image-3.2.0-36-generic-pae - 3.2.0-36.57
linux-image-3.2.0-36-highbank - 3.2.0-36.57
linux-image-3.2.0-36-omap - 3.2.0-36.57
linux-image-3.2.0-36-powerpc-smp - 3.2.0-36.57
linux-image-3.2.0-36-powerpc64-smp - 3.2.0-36.57
linux-image-3.2.0-36-virtual - 3.2.0-36.57

To update your system, please follow these instructions: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Security/Upgrades.

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. If you use linux-restricted-modules, you have to update that package as well to get modules which work with the new kernel version. Unless you manually uninstalled the standard kernel metapackages (e.g. linux-generic, linux-server, linux-powerpc), a standard system upgrade will automatically perform this as well.

References