USN-2764-1: Linux kernel (Utopic HWE) vulnerability
5 October 2015
linux-lts-utopic vulnerability
A security issue affects these releases of Ubuntu and its derivatives:
- Ubuntu 14.04 LTS
Summary
The system could be made to crash or run programs as an administrator.
Software Description
- linux-lts-utopic - Linux hardware enablement kernel from Utopic
Details
Dmitry Vyukov discovered that the Linux kernel did not properly initialize IPC object state in certain situations. A local attacker could use this to escalate their privileges, expose confidential information, or cause a denial of service (system crash).
Update instructions
The problem can be corrected by updating your system to the following package versions:
- Ubuntu 14.04 LTS
- linux-image-3.16.0-50-generic - 3.16.0-50.67~14.04.1
- linux-image-3.16.0-50-generic-lpae - 3.16.0-50.67~14.04.1
- linux-image-3.16.0-50-lowlatency - 3.16.0-50.67~14.04.1
- linux-image-3.16.0-50-powerpc-e500mc - 3.16.0-50.67~14.04.1
- linux-image-3.16.0-50-powerpc-smp - 3.16.0-50.67~14.04.1
- linux-image-3.16.0-50-powerpc64-emb - 3.16.0-50.67~14.04.1
- linux-image-3.16.0-50-powerpc64-smp - 3.16.0-50.67~14.04.1
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.