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Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 RHSA-2015:0869-01 Important KVM Flaws

red hat
Calendar Grey April 22, 2015
Dist Redhat Esm H88
Critical KVM security update for Red Hat Enterprise Linux addressing important issues and vulnerabilities.
Updated kvm packages that fix two security issues are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5

Solution

Before applying this update, make sure all previously released errata relevant to your system have been applied.

For details on how to apply this update, refer to:

https://access.redhat.com/articles/11258

The following procedure must be performed before this update will take effect:

1) Stop all KVM guest virtual machines.

2) Either reboot the hypervisor machine or, as the root user, remove (using "modprobe -r [module]") and reload (using "modprobe [module]") all of the following modules which are currently running (determined using "lsmod"): kvm, ksm, kvm-intel or kvm-amd.

3) Restart the KVM guest virtual machines.

Summary

KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) is a full virtualization solution for Linux on AMD64 and Intel 64 systems. KVM is a Linux kernel module built for the standard Red Hat Enterprise Linux kernel.
It was found that KVM's Write to Model Specific Register (WRMSR) instruction emulation would write non-canonical values passed in by the guest to certain MSRs in the host's context. A privileged guest user could use this flaw to crash the host. (CVE-2014-3610)
A race condition flaw was found in the way the Linux kernel's KVM subsystem handled PIT (Programmable Interval Timer) emulation. A guest user who has access to the PIT I/O ports could use this flaw to crash the host. (CVE-2014-3611)
Red Hat would like to thank Lars Bull of Google and Nadav Amit for reporting the CVE-2014-3610 issue, and Lars Bull of Google for reporting the CVE-2014-3611 issue.
All kvm users are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backported patches to correct these issues. Note: The procedure in the Solution section must be performed before this update will take effect.

Topics%20covered

Topics Covered

security advisory important red hat enterprise kvm crash threat

References

https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2014-3610 https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2014-3611 https://access.redhat.com/security/updates/classification#important

Package List

RHEL Desktop Multi OS (v. 5 client):
Source: kvm-83-270.el5_11.src.rpm
x86_64: kmod-kvm-83-270.el5_11.x86_64.rpm kmod-kvm-debug-83-270.el5_11.x86_64.rpm kvm-83-270.el5_11.x86_64.rpm kvm-debuginfo-83-270.el5_11.x86_64.rpm kvm-qemu-img-83-270.el5_11.x86_64.rpm kvm-tools-83-270.el5_11.x86_64.rpm
RHEL Virtualization (v. 5 server):
Source: kvm-83-270.el5_11.src.rpm
x86_64: kmod-kvm-83-270.el5_11.x86_64.rpm kmod-kvm-debug-83-270.el5_11.x86_64.rpm kvm-83-270.el5_11.x86_64.rpm kvm-debuginfo-83-270.el5_11.x86_64.rpm kvm-qemu-img-83-270.el5_11.x86_64.rpm kvm-tools-83-270.el5_11.x86_64.rpm
These packages are GPG signed by Red Hat for security. Our key and details on how to verify the signature are available from https://access.redhat.com/security/team/key


Severity
important
Lowest
Low
Medium
High
Critical

Advisory ID: RHSA-2015:0869-01
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Advisory URL: https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2015:0869.html
Issue date: 2015-04-22

Topic

Updated kvm packages that fix two security issues are now available for RedHat Enterprise Linux 5.Red Hat Product Security has rated this update as having Important securityimpact. Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base scores, which givedetailed severity ratings, are available for each vulnerability from theCVE links in the References section.

Topics%20covered

Topics Covered

security advisory important red hat enterprise kvm crash threat

Relevant Releases Architectures

RHEL Desktop Multi OS (v. 5 client) - x86_64

RHEL Virtualization (v. 5 server) - x86_64

Bugs Fixed

1144878 - CVE-2014-3611 kernel: kvm: PIT timer race condition

1144883 - CVE-2014-3610 kernel: kvm: noncanonical MSR writes

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