CVE-2014-3611

Published: 23 October 2014

Race condition in the __kvm_migrate_pit_timer function in arch/x86/kvm/i8254.c in the KVM subsystem in the Linux kernel through 3.17.2 allows guest OS users to cause a denial of service (host OS crash) by leveraging incorrect PIT emulation. A local guest user with access to the PIT i/o ports could use this flaw to crash the host.

From the Ubuntu Security Team

Lars Bull reported a race condition in the PIT (programmable interrupt timer) emulation in the KVM (Kernel Virtual Machine) subsystem of the Linux kernel. A local guest user with access to PIT i/o ports could exploit this flaw to cause a denial of service (crash) on the host.

Notes

android kernels (flo, goldfish, grouper, maguro, mako and manta) are
not supported on the Ubuntu Touch 14.04 preview kernels
linux-lts-saucy no longer receives official support
linux-lts-quantal no longer receives official support
CVE disclosure was part of miscoordinated CRD (various (incomplete)
commits were publicly leaked by other vendors and upstream before the embargo
was lifted).
Updates for linux on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS were made available to users
on 2014/10/28 but due to a process error, USN publication did not happen
until 2014/10/30.
Updates for linux-lts-trusty on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS were made available
to users on 2014/10/29 but due to a process error, USN publication did not
happen until 2014/10/30.
Updates for linux on Ubuntu 14.10 were made available to users on
2014/10/28 but due to a process error, USN publication did not happen until
2014/10/31.

Status

Severity score breakdown

References

• https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-2394-1
• https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-2395-1
• https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-2396-1
• https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-2417-1
• https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-2418-1
• https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-2462-1
• https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-2491-1
• https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2014-3611
• NVD
• Launchpad
• Debian

Bugs

• https://launchpad.net/bugs/1384540