Ubuntu Security Notice USN-715-1

29th January, 2009

linux vulnerabilities

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

• Ubuntu 8.10

Software description

• linux

Details

Hugo Dias discovered that the ATM subsystem did not correctly manage
socket counts. A local attacker could exploit this to cause a system hang,
leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2008-5079)

It was discovered that the inotify subsystem contained watch removal
race conditions. A local attacker could exploit this to crash the system,
leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2008-5182)

Dann Frazier discovered that in certain situations sendmsg did not
correctly release allocated memory. A local attacker could exploit
this to force the system to run out of free memory, leading to a denial
of service. (CVE-2008-5300)

Helge Deller discovered that PA-RISC stack unwinding was not handled
correctly. A local attacker could exploit this to crash the system,
leading do a denial of service. This did not affect official Ubuntu
kernels, but was fixed in the source for anyone performing HPPA kernel
builds. (CVE-2008-5395)

It was discovered that the ATA subsystem did not correctly set timeouts. A
local attacker could exploit this to cause a system hang, leading to a
denial of service. (CVE-2008-5700)

It was discovered that the ib700 watchdog timer did not correctly check
buffer sizes. A local attacker could send a specially crafted ioctl
to the device to cause a system crash, leading to a denial of service.
(CVE-2008-5702)

Update instructions

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

Ubuntu 8.10:

linux-image-2.6.27-11-server 2.6.27-11.27

linux-image-2.6.27-11-generic 2.6.27-11.27

linux-image-2.6.27-11-virtual 2.6.27-11.27

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

After a standard system upgrade you need to reboot your computer to
effect 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-2008-5079, CVE-2008-5182, CVE-2008-5300, CVE-2008-5395, CVE-2008-5700, CVE-2008-5702