USN-2700-1: Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Ubuntu Security Notice USN-2700-1

30th July, 2015

linux vulnerabilities

A security issue affects these releases of Ubuntu and its
derivatives:

  • Ubuntu 14.04 LTS

Summary

Several security issues were fixed in the kernel.

Software description

  • linux
    – Linux kernel

Details

Andy Lutomirski discovered a flaw in the Linux kernel’s handling of nested
NMIs (non-maskable interrupts). An unprivileged local user could exploit
this flaw to cause a denial of service (system crash) or potentially
escalate their privileges. (CVE-2015-3290)

Andy Lutomirski discovered a flaw that allows user to cause the Linux
kernel to ignore some NMIs (non-maskable interrupts). A local unprivileged
user could exploit this flaw to potentially cause the system to miss
important NMIs resulting in unspecified effects. (CVE-2015-3291)

Andy Lutomirski and Petr Matousek discovered that an NMI (non-maskable
interrupt) that interrupts userspace and encounters an IRET fault is
incorrectly handled by the Linux kernel. An unprivileged local user could
exploit this flaw to cause a denial of service (kernel OOPs), corruption,
or potentially escalate privileges on the system. (CVE-2015-5157)

Update instructions

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

Ubuntu 14.04 LTS:
linux-image-3.13.0-61-generic-lpae

3.13.0-61.100
linux-image-3.13.0-61-lowlatency

3.13.0-61.100
linux-image-3.13.0-61-powerpc-e500mc

3.13.0-61.100
linux-image-3.13.0-61-powerpc64-emb

3.13.0-61.100
linux-image-3.13.0-61-powerpc64-smp

3.13.0-61.100
linux-image-3.13.0-61-powerpc-e500

3.13.0-61.100
linux-image-3.13.0-61-generic

3.13.0-61.100
linux-image-3.13.0-61-powerpc-smp

3.13.0-61.100

To update your system, please follow these instructions:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Security/Upgrades.

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. If
you use linux-restricted-modules, you have to update that package as
well to get modules which work with the new kernel version. Unless you
manually uninstalled the standard kernel metapackages (e.g. linux-generic,
linux-server, linux-powerpc), a standard system upgrade will automatically
perform this as well.

References

CVE-2015-3290,

CVE-2015-3291,

CVE-2015-5157

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