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Ubuntu 15.10: USN-2978-1 Urgent Kernel Access Vulnerabilities Update

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Calendar Grey May 16, 2016
Scroller Ubuntu
Multiple vulnerabilities impacting the Ubuntu kernel addressed through USN-2980-1 release. Make sure to refresh your system.
Several security issues were fixed in the kernel.

Summary

Several security issues were fixed in the kernel.

Software Description:

- linux: Linux kernel

Details:

David Matlack discovered that the Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)

implementation in the Linux kernel did not properly restrict variable

Memory Type Range Registers (MTRR) in KVM guests. A privileged user in a

guest VM could use this to cause a denial of service (system crash) in the

host, expose sensitive information from the host, or possibly gain

administrative privileges in the host. (CVE-2016-3713)

Philip Pettersson discovered that the Linux kernel's ASN.1 DER decoder did

not properly process certificate files with tags of indefinite length. A

local unprivileged attacker could use this to cause a denial of service

(system crash) or possibly execute arbitrary code with administrative

privileges. (CVE-2016-0758)

Topics%20covered

Topics Covered

security advisory denial of service kernel ubuntu system crash administrative access

Update Instructions

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

Ubuntu 15.10:
  linux-image-4.2.0-36-generic    4.2.0-36.42
  linux-image-4.2.0-36-generic-lpae  4.2.0-36.42
  linux-image-4.2.0-36-lowlatency  4.2.0-36.42
  linux-image-4.2.0-36-powerpc-e500mc  4.2.0-36.42
  linux-image-4.2.0-36-powerpc-smp  4.2.0-36.42
  linux-image-4.2.0-36-powerpc64-emb  4.2.0-36.42
  linux-image-4.2.0-36-powerpc64-smp  4.2.0-36.42

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

https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-2978-1

CVE-2016-0758, CVE-2016-3713

Severity
critical
Lowest
Low
Medium
High
Critical

May 16, 2016

Topics%20covered

Topics Covered

security advisory denial of service kernel ubuntu system crash administrative access

Package Information

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/4.2.0-36.42

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