USN-6536-1: Linux kernel vulnerabilities

6 December 2023

Several security issues were fixed in the Linux kernel.

Reduce your security exposure

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

Releases

Packages

Details

Lucas Leong discovered that the netfilter subsystem in the Linux kernel did
not properly validate some attributes passed from userspace. A local
attacker could use this to cause a denial of service (system crash) or
possibly expose sensitive information (kernel memory). (CVE-2023-39189)

Kyle Zeng discovered that the IPv4 implementation in the Linux kernel did
not properly handle socket buffers (skb) when performing IP routing in
certain circumstances, leading to a null pointer dereference vulnerability.
A privileged attacker could use this to cause a denial of service (system
crash). (CVE-2023-42754)

Yikebaer Aizezi discovered that the ext4 file system implementation in the
Linux kernel contained a use-after-free vulnerability when handling inode
extent metadata. An attacker could use this to construct a malicious ext4
file system image that, when mounted, could cause a denial of service
(system crash). (CVE-2023-45898)

Jason Wang discovered that the virtio ring implementation in the Linux
kernel did not properly handle iov buffers in some situations. A local
attacker in a guest VM could use this to cause a denial of service (host
system crash). (CVE-2023-5158)

Alon Zahavi discovered that the NVMe-oF/TCP subsystem in the Linux kernel
did not properly handle queue initialization failures in certain
situations, leading to a use-after-free vulnerability. A remote attacker
could use this to cause a denial of service (system crash) or possibly
execute arbitrary code. (CVE-2023-5178)

Budimir Markovic discovered that the perf subsystem in the Linux kernel did
not properly handle event groups, leading to an out-of-bounds write
vulnerability. A local attacker could use this to cause a denial of service
(system crash) or possibly execute arbitrary code. (CVE-2023-5717)

Reduce your security exposure

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 23.10
Ubuntu 22.04

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

Join the discussion

Need help with your security needs?

Ubuntu Pro provides up to ten-year security coverage for over 23,000 open-source packages within the Ubuntu Main and Universe repositories.

Talk to an expert to find out what would work best for you

Further reading