Lately, popular Linux distros, Debian and Ubuntu received Kernel Security updates.
The update consists of security patches addressing numerous critical security vulnerabilities. Hence, users are advised to apply the patches at the earliest.
The latest kernel version updated to version 5.10.149-1 for Debian 11, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS to linux-image 5.4.0-131.147, and 18.04.6 LTS to linux-image-hwe 5.4.0.131.147~18.04.108.
Linux Kernel update comprises 17 security vulnerabilities while a few of the highlighted ones are:
CVE-2021-4037: Christian Brauner reported that the inode_init_owner function for the XFS filesystem in the Linux kernel allows local users to create files with unintended group ownership allowing attackers to escalate privileges by making a plain file executable and SGID.
CVE-2022-0171: Mingwei Zhang reported that a cache incoherence issue in the SEV API in the KVM subsystem may result in a denial of service.
CVE-2022-1184: A flaw was discovered in the ext4 filesystem driver which can lead to a use-after-free. A local user permitted to mount arbitrary filesystems could exploit this to cause a denial of service (crash or memory corruption) or possibly for privilege escalation.
CVE-2022-2602: A race between handling an io_uring request and the Unix socket garbage collector was discovered. An attacker can take advantage of this flaw for local privilege escalation.
CVE-2022-2663: David Leadbeater reported flaws in the nf_conntrack_irc connection-tracking protocol module. When this module is enabled on a firewall, an external user on the same IRC network as an internal user could exploit its lax parsing to open arbitrary TCP ports in the firewall, reveal their public IP address, or block their IRC connection at the firewall.
CVE-2022-3061: A flaw was discovered in the i740 driver which may result in denial of service. This driver is not enabled in Debian’s official kernel configurations.
CVE-2022-3176: A use-after-free flaw was discovered in the io_uring subsystem which may result in local privilege escalation to root.
CVE-2022-3303: A race condition in the snd_pcm_oss_sync function in the sound subsystem in the Linux kernel due to improper locking may result in denial of service.
CVE-2022-20421: A use-after-free vulnerability was discovered in the binder_inc_ref_for_node function in the Android binder driver. On systems where the binder driver is loaded, a local user could exploit this for privilege escalation.
CVE-2022-39188: Jann Horn reported a race condition in the kernel’s handling of unmapping certain memory ranges. When a driver created a memory mapping with the VM_PFNMAP flag, which many GPU drivers do, the memory mapping could be removed and freed before it was flushed from the CPU TLBs. This could result in a page use-after-free. A local user with access to such a device could exploit this to cause a denial of service (crash or memory corruption) or possibly for privilege escalation.
CVE-2022-39842: An integer overflow was discovered in the pxa3xx-gcu video driver which could lead to a heap out-of-bounds write. This driver is not enabled in Debian’s official kernel configurations.
CVE-2022-40307: A race condition was discovered in the EFI capsule-loader driver, which could lead to use-after-free. A local user permitted to access this device (/dev/efi_capsule_loader) could exploit this to cause a denial of service (crash or memory corruption) or possibly for privilege escalation. However, this device is normally only accessible by the root user.
CVE-2022-41674, CVE-2022-42719, CVE-2022-42720, CVE-2022-42721, CVE-2022-42722: Soenke Huster discovered several vulnerabilities in the mac80211 subsystem triggered by WLAN frames which may result in denial of service or the execution or arbitrary code.
Now, to install the kernel security update, users can run the following command:
sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgradeInterested in Linux News’ daily update? Subscribe to our newsletter for daily updates.
