Issued:
2007-10-22
Updated:
2007-10-22

RHSA-2007:0940 - Important: kernel security update

Synopsis

Important: kernel security update

Type/Severity

Security Advisory Important

Topic

Updated kernel packages that fix various security issues in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 kernel are now available.

This update has been rated as having important security impact by the Red Hat Security Response Team.

Description

The Linux kernel handles the basic functions of the operating system.

These new kernel packages contain fixes for the following security issues:

  • A flaw was found in the backported stack unwinder fixes in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. On AMD64 and Intel 64 platforms, a local user could trigger this flaw and cause a denial of service. (CVE-2007-4574, Important)

  • A flaw was found in the handling of process death signals. This allowed a local user to send arbitrary signals to the suid-process executed by that user. A successful exploitation of this flaw depends on the structure of the suid-program and its signal handling. (CVE-2007-3848, Important)

  • A flaw was found in the Distributed Lock Manager (DLM) in the cluster manager. This allowed a remote user who is able to connect to the DLM port to cause a denial of service. (CVE-2007-3380, Important)

  • A flaw was found in the aacraid SCSI driver. This allowed a local user to make ioctl calls to the driver which should otherwise be restricted to privileged users. (CVE-2007-4308, Moderate)

  • A flaw was found in the prio_tree handling of the hugetlb support that allowed a local user to cause a denial of service. This only affected kernels with hugetlb support. (CVE-2007-4133, Moderate)

  • A flaw was found in the eHCA driver on PowerPC architectures that allowed a local user to access 60k of physical address space. This address space could contain sensitive information. (CVE-2007-3850, Moderate)

  • A flaw was found in ptrace support that allowed a local user to cause a denial of service via a NULL pointer dereference. (CVE-2007-3731, Moderate)

  • A flaw was found in the usblcd driver that allowed a local user to cause a denial of service by writing data to the device node. To exploit this issue, write access to the device node was needed. (CVE-2007-3513, Moderate)

  • A flaw was found in the random number generator implementation that allowed a local user to cause a denial of service or possibly gain privileges. If the root user raised the default wakeup threshold over the size of the output pool, this flaw could be exploited. (CVE-2007-3105, Low)

In addition to the security issues described above, several bug fixes preventing possible system crashes and data corruption were also included.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 users are advised to upgrade to these packages, which contain backported patches to resolve these issues.

Solution

Before applying this update, make sure that all previously-released errata relevant to your system have been applied.

This update is available via Red Hat Network. Details on how to use the Red Hat Network to apply this update are available at This content is not included.http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/FAQ_58_10188

Affected Products

ProductVersionArch
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian5ppc
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems5s390x
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation5x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation5i386
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server5x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server5ia64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server5i386
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI5x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI5i386
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop5x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop5i386

Updated Packages

  • kernel-2.6.18-8.1.15.el5.src.rpm
  • kernel-xen-2.6.18-8.1.15.el5.i686.rpm
  • kernel-xen-2.6.18-8.1.15.el5.x86_64.rpm
  • kernel-PAE-2.6.18-8.1.15.el5.i686.rpm
  • kernel-devel-2.6.18-8.1.15.el5.x86_64.rpm
  • kernel-headers-2.6.18-8.1.15.el5.ppc.rpm
  • kernel-kdump-2.6.18-8.1.15.el5.ppc64.rpm
  • kernel-devel-2.6.18-8.1.15.el5.ppc64.rpm
  • kernel-devel-2.6.18-8.1.15.el5.s390x.rpm
  • kernel-2.6.18-8.1.15.el5.ppc64.rpm
  • kernel-2.6.18-8.1.15.el5.s390x.rpm
  • kernel-headers-2.6.18-8.1.15.el5.s390x.rpm
  • kernel-devel-2.6.18-8.1.15.el5.ia64.rpm
  • kernel-2.6.18-8.1.15.el5.i686.rpm
  • kernel-doc-2.6.18-8.1.15.el5.noarch.rpm
  • kernel-headers-2.6.18-8.1.15.el5.ia64.rpm
  • kernel-xen-devel-2.6.18-8.1.15.el5.ia64.rpm
  • kernel-kdump-devel-2.6.18-8.1.15.el5.ppc64.rpm
  • kernel-headers-2.6.18-8.1.15.el5.ppc64.rpm
  • kernel-headers-2.6.18-8.1.15.el5.i386.rpm
  • kernel-2.6.18-8.1.15.el5.ia64.rpm
  • kernel-xen-2.6.18-8.1.15.el5.ia64.rpm
  • kernel-headers-2.6.18-8.1.15.el5.x86_64.rpm
  • kernel-xen-devel-2.6.18-8.1.15.el5.i686.rpm
  • kernel-PAE-devel-2.6.18-8.1.15.el5.i686.rpm
  • kernel-xen-devel-2.6.18-8.1.15.el5.x86_64.rpm
  • kernel-devel-2.6.18-8.1.15.el5.i686.rpm
  • kernel-2.6.18-8.1.15.el5.x86_64.rpm

Fixes

CVEs

References

Additional information