Issued:

2014-07-23

Updated:

2014-07-23

RHSA-2014:0924 - Important: kernel security update

Synopsis

Important: kernel security update

Type/Severity

Security Advisory Important

Topic

Updated kernel packages that fix two security issues are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.

The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having Important security impact. Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base scores, which give detailed severity ratings, are available for each vulnerability from the CVE links in the References section.

Description

The kernel packages contain the Linux kernel, the core of any Linux operating system.

• It was found that the Linux kernel's ptrace subsystem allowed a traced process' instruction pointer to be set to a non-canonical memory address without forcing the non-sysret code path when returning to user space. A local, unprivileged user could use this flaw to crash the system or, potentially, escalate their privileges on the system. (CVE-2014-4699, Important)

Note: The CVE-2014-4699 issue only affected systems using an Intel CPU.

• A flaw was found in the way the pppol2tp_setsockopt() and pppol2tp_getsockopt() functions in the Linux kernel's PPP over L2TP implementation handled requests with a non-SOL_PPPOL2TP socket option level. A local, unprivileged user could use this flaw to escalate their privileges on the system. (CVE-2014-4943, Important)

Red Hat would like to thank Andy Lutomirski for reporting CVE-2014-4699, and Sasha Levin for reporting CVE-2014-4943.

All kernel users are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backported patches to correct these issues. The system must be rebooted for this update to take effect.

Solution

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

This update is available via the Red Hat Network. Details on how to use the Red Hat Network to apply this update are available at https://access.redhat.com/articles/11258

To install kernel packages manually, use "rpm -ivh [package]". Do not use "rpm -Uvh" as that will remove the running kernel binaries from your system. You may use "rpm -e" to remove old kernels after determining that the new kernel functions properly on your system.

Affected Products

Updated Packages

• kernel-debug-debuginfo-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.x86_64.rpm
• kernel-headers-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.i686.rpm
• kernel-debug-devel-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.i686.rpm
• kernel-debug-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.x86_64.rpm
• kernel-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.ppc64.rpm
• kernel-debuginfo-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.x86_64.rpm
• kernel-debug-debuginfo-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.ppc64.rpm
• kernel-devel-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.s390x.rpm
• perf-debuginfo-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.s390x.rpm
• kernel-debug-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.s390x.rpm
• kernel-debuginfo-common-x86_64-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.x86_64.rpm
• python-perf-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.x86_64.rpm
• python-perf-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.i686.rpm
• kernel-kdump-debuginfo-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.s390x.rpm
• python-perf-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.s390x.rpm
• python-perf-debuginfo-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.x86_64.rpm
• kernel-headers-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.ppc64.rpm
• kernel-debuginfo-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.s390x.rpm
• kernel-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.src.rpm
• perf-debuginfo-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.ppc64.rpm
• kernel-kdump-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.s390x.rpm
• python-perf-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.ppc64.rpm
• kernel-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.s390x.rpm
• kernel-devel-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.i686.rpm
• kernel-debuginfo-common-i686-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.i686.rpm
• kernel-debuginfo-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.i686.rpm
• kernel-bootwrapper-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.ppc64.rpm
• perf-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.ppc64.rpm
• kernel-debug-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.ppc64.rpm
• kernel-doc-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.noarch.rpm
• kernel-debuginfo-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.ppc64.rpm
• perf-debuginfo-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.x86_64.rpm
• kernel-abi-whitelists-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.noarch.rpm
• kernel-debug-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.i686.rpm
• kernel-firmware-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.noarch.rpm
• kernel-debug-debuginfo-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.i686.rpm
• kernel-debug-devel-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.ppc64.rpm
• kernel-debug-devel-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.s390x.rpm
• kernel-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.i686.rpm
• kernel-headers-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.x86_64.rpm
• kernel-debuginfo-common-ppc64-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.ppc64.rpm
• python-perf-debuginfo-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.s390x.rpm
• kernel-headers-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.s390x.rpm
• kernel-debuginfo-common-s390x-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.s390x.rpm
• python-perf-debuginfo-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.ppc64.rpm
• kernel-devel-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.ppc64.rpm
• python-perf-debuginfo-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.i686.rpm
• perf-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.s390x.rpm
• kernel-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.x86_64.rpm
• kernel-kdump-devel-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.s390x.rpm
• kernel-debug-devel-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.x86_64.rpm
• perf-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.i686.rpm
• kernel-debug-debuginfo-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.s390x.rpm
• perf-debuginfo-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.i686.rpm
• kernel-devel-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.x86_64.rpm
• perf-2.6.32-431.20.5.el6.x86_64.rpm

Fixes

• This content is not included.BZ - 1115927
• This content is not included.BZ - 1119458

CVEs

• CVE-2014-4699
• CVE-2014-4943

References

• https://access.redhat.com/security/updates/classification/#important

Additional information

• The Red Hat security contact is This content is not included.secalert@redhat.com. More contact details at https://access.redhat.com/security/team/contact/.
• Offline Security Data data is available for integration with other systems. See Offline Security Data API to get started.