USN-4419-1: Linux kernel vulnerabilities

6 July 2020

Several security issues were fixed in the Linux kernel.

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Releases

Packages

Details

It was discovered that a race condition existed in the Precision Time
Protocol (PTP) implementation in the Linux kernel, leading to a use-after-
free vulnerability. A local attacker could possibly use this to cause a
denial of service (system crash) or possibly execute arbitrary code.
(CVE-2020-10690)

Matthew Sheets discovered that the SELinux network label handling
implementation in the Linux kernel could be coerced into de-referencing a
NULL pointer. A remote attacker could use this to cause a denial of service
(system crash). (CVE-2020-10711)

It was discovered that the SCSI generic (sg) driver in the Linux kernel did
not properly handle certain error conditions correctly. A local privileged
attacker could use this to cause a denial of service (system crash).
(CVE-2020-12770)

It was discovered that the USB Gadget device driver in the Linux kernel did
not validate arguments passed from configfs in some situations. A local
attacker could possibly use this to cause a denial of service (system
crash) or possibly expose sensitive information. (CVE-2020-13143)

Shijie Luo discovered that the ext4 file system implementation in the Linux
kernel did not properly check for a too-large journal size. An attacker
could use this to construct a malicious ext4 image that, when mounted,
could cause a denial of service (soft lockup). (CVE-2020-8992)

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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 16.04
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.
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

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