USN-5357-2: Linux kernel vulnerability

31 March 2022

The system could be made to crash or run programs as an administrator.

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Releases

Packages

  • linux-aws-hwe - Linux kernel for Amazon Web Services (AWS-HWE) systems
  • linux-azure - Linux kernel for Microsoft Azure Cloud systems
  • linux-gcp - Linux kernel for Google Cloud Platform (GCP) systems
  • linux-gcp-4.15 - Linux kernel for Google Cloud Platform (GCP) systems
  • linux-oracle - Linux kernel for Oracle Cloud systems
  • linux-raspi2 - Linux kernel for Raspberry Pi systems

Details

It was discovered that the IPsec implementation in the Linux kernel did not
properly allocate enough memory when performing ESP transformations,
leading to a heap-based buffer overflow. A local attacker could use this to
cause a denial of service (system crash) or possibly execute arbitrary
code.

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Ubuntu Pro provides ten-year security coverage to 25,000+ packages in Main and Universe repositories, and it is free for up to five machines.

Learn more about Ubuntu Pro

Update instructions

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

Ubuntu 18.04
Ubuntu 16.04
Ubuntu 14.04

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.
Unless you manually uninstalled the standard kernel metapackages
(e.g. linux-generic, linux-generic-lts-RELEASE, linux-virtual,
linux-powerpc), a standard system upgrade will automatically perform
this as well.

References

Related notices

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