USN-3161-1: Linux kernel vulnerabilities

20 December 2016

Several security issues were fixed in the kernel.

Reduce your security exposure

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.

Learn more about Ubuntu Pro

Releases

Packages

Details

Tilman Schmidt and Sasha Levin discovered a use-after-free condition in the
TTY implementation in the Linux kernel. A local attacker could use this to
expose sensitive information (kernel memory). (CVE-2015-8964)

It was discovered that the Video For Linux Two (v4l2) implementation in the
Linux kernel did not properly handle multiple planes when processing a
VIDIOC_DQBUF ioctl(). A local attacker could use this to cause a denial of
service (system crash) or possibly execute arbitrary code. (CVE-2016-4568)

CAI Qian discovered that shared bind mounts in a mount namespace
exponentially added entries without restriction to the Linux kernel's mount
table. A local attacker could use this to cause a denial of service (system
crash). (CVE-2016-6213)

It was discovered that the KVM implementation for x86/x86_64 in the Linux
kernel could dereference a null pointer. An attacker in a guest virtual
machine could use this to cause a denial of service (system crash) in the
KVM host. (CVE-2016-8630)

Eyal Itkin discovered that the IP over IEEE 1394 (FireWire) implementation
in the Linux kernel contained a buffer overflow when handling fragmented
packets. A remote attacker could use this to possibly execute arbitrary
code with administrative privileges. (CVE-2016-8633)

Marco Grassi discovered that the TCP implementation in the Linux kernel
mishandles socket buffer (skb) truncation. A local attacker could use this
to cause a denial of service (system crash). (CVE-2016-8645)

Andrey Konovalov discovered that the SCTP implementation in the Linux
kernel improperly handled validation of incoming data. A remote attacker
could use this to cause a denial of service (system crash). (CVE-2016-9555)

Reduce your security exposure

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.

Learn more about Ubuntu Pro

Update instructions

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

Ubuntu 16.04

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.
Unless you manually uninstalled the standard kernel metapackages
(e.g. linux-generic, linux-generic-lts-RELEASE, linux-virtual,
linux-powerpc), a standard system upgrade will automatically perform
this as well.

References

Related notices

Join the discussion

Need help with your security needs?

Ubuntu Pro provides up to ten-year security coverage for over 23,000 open-source packages within the Ubuntu Main and Universe repositories.

Talk to an expert to find out what would work best for you

Further reading