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RHEL 5, RHSA-2015:1003-01 Important: kvm Out-Of-Bounds Access

red hat
Calendar Grey May 13, 2015
Dist Redhat Esm H88
Crucial enhancement for KVM on Red Hat Enterprise Linux is now available to address a significant security flaw, including detailed instructions for the upgrade process.
Updated kvm packages that fix one security issue 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.
An out-of-bounds memory access flaw was found in the way QEMU's virtual Floppy Disk Controller (FDC) handled FIFO buffer access while processing certain FDC commands. A privileged guest user could use this flaw to crash the guest or, potentially, execute arbitrary code on the host with the privileges of the host's QEMU process corresponding to the guest. (CVE-2015-3456)
Red Hat would like to thank Jason Geffner of CrowdStrike for reporting this issue.
All kvm users are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which contain a backported patch to correct this issue. Note: The procedure in the Solution section must be performed before this update will take effect.

References

https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2015-3456 https://access.redhat.com/security/updates/classification/#important

Package List

RHEL Desktop Multi OS (v. 5 client):
Source: kvm-83-272.el5_11.src.rpm
x86_64: kmod-kvm-83-272.el5_11.x86_64.rpm kmod-kvm-debug-83-272.el5_11.x86_64.rpm kvm-83-272.el5_11.x86_64.rpm kvm-debuginfo-83-272.el5_11.x86_64.rpm kvm-qemu-img-83-272.el5_11.x86_64.rpm kvm-tools-83-272.el5_11.x86_64.rpm
RHEL Virtualization (v. 5 server):
Source: kvm-83-272.el5_11.src.rpm
x86_64: kmod-kvm-83-272.el5_11.x86_64.rpm kmod-kvm-debug-83-272.el5_11.x86_64.rpm kvm-83-272.el5_11.x86_64.rpm kvm-debuginfo-83-272.el5_11.x86_64.rpm kvm-qemu-img-83-272.el5_11.x86_64.rpm kvm-tools-83-272.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
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Medium
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Critical

Advisory ID: RHSA-2015:1003-01
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Issue date: 2015-05-13

Topic

Updated kvm packages that fix one security issue are now available for RedHat Enterprise Linux 5.Red Hat Product Security has rated this update as having Important securityimpact. A Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base score, whichgives a detailed severity rating, is available from the CVE link in theReferences section.

Relevant Releases Architectures

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

RHEL Virtualization (v. 5 server) - x86_64

Bugs Fixed

1218611 - CVE-2015-3456 qemu: fdc: out-of-bounds fifo buffer memory access

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