USN-2798-1: Linux kernel (Vivid HWE) vulnerabilities

5 November 2015

Several security issues were fixed in the kernel.

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Releases

Packages

Details

It was discovered that in certain situations, a directory could be renamed
outside of a bind mounted location. An attacker could use this to escape
bind mount containment and gain access to sensitive information.
(CVE-2015-2925)

Moein Ghasemzadeh discovered that the USB WhiteHEAT serial driver contained
hardcoded attributes about the USB devices. An attacker could construct a
fake WhiteHEAT USB device that, when inserted, causes a denial of service
(system crash). (CVE-2015-5257)

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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 14.04

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.