USN-1440-1: Linux kernel (Natty backport) vulnerabilities

8 May 2012

Several security issues were fixed in the kernel.

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Releases

Packages

Details

A flaw was found in the Linux's kernels ext4 file system when mounted with
a journal. A local, unprivileged user could exploit this flaw to cause a
denial of service. (CVE-2011-4086)

Sasha Levin discovered a flaw in the permission checking for device
assignments requested via the kvm ioctl in the Linux kernel. A local user
could use this flaw to crash the system causing a denial of service.
(CVE-2011-4347)

Stephan Bärwolf discovered a flaw in the KVM (kernel-based virtual
machine) subsystem of the Linux kernel. A local unprivileged user can crash
use this flaw to crash VMs causing a deny of service. (CVE-2012-0045)

A flaw was discovered in the Linux kernel's cifs file system. An
unprivileged local user could exploit this flaw to crash the system leading
to a denial of service. (CVE-2012-1090)

H. Peter Anvin reported a flaw in the Linux kernel that could crash the
system. A local user could exploit this flaw to crash the system.
(CVE-2012-1097)

A flaw was discovered in the Linux kernel's cgroups subset. A local
attacker could use this flaw to crash the system. (CVE-2012-1146)

A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's ext4 file system when mounting a
corrupt filesystem. A user-assisted remote attacker could exploit this flaw
to cause a denial of service. (CVE-2012-2100)

Tetsuo Handa reported a flaw in the OOM (out of memory) killer of the Linux
kernel. A local unprivileged user can exploit this flaw to cause system
unstability and denial of services. (CVE-2012-4398)

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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 10.04

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. 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.