USN-1008-4: libvirt regression

Releases

• Ubuntu 10.04

Packages

• libvirt - the programs for the libvirt library

Details

USN-1008-1 fixed vulnerabilities in libvirt. The upstream fixes for
CVE-2010-2238 changed the behavior of libvirt such that the domain
XML could not specify 'host_device' as the qemu sub-type. While libvirt
0.8.3 and later will longer support specifying this sub-type, this
update restores the old behavior on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

Original advisory details:

It was discovered that libvirt would probe disk backing stores without
consulting the defined format for the disk. A privileged attacker in the
guest could exploit this to read arbitrary files on the host. This issue
only affected Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. By default, guests are confined by an
AppArmor profile which provided partial protection against this flaw.
(CVE-2010-2237, CVE-2010-2238)

It was discovered that libvirt would create new VMs without setting a
backing store format. A privileged attacker in the guest could exploit this
to read arbitrary files on the host. This issue did not affect Ubuntu 8.04
LTS. In Ubuntu 9.10 and later guests are confined by an AppArmor profile
which provided partial protection against this flaw. (CVE-2010-2239)

Jeremy Nickurak discovered that libvirt created iptables rules with too
lenient mappings of source ports. A privileged attacker in the guest could
bypass intended restrictions to access privileged resources on the host.
(CVE-2010-2242)

Update instructions

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

Ubuntu 10.04

• libvirt0 - 0.7.5-5ubuntu27.7

In general, a standard system update will make all the necessary changes.

References

• https://launchpad.net/bugs/665531