Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Ubuntu 12.04 LTS gets major kernel updates


Time to run sudo apt-get upgrade && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade if you are a Ubuntu 12.04 LTS user like me.

Their have been some major updates that solve a lot of security holes and bugs.

Softpedia covered it well:

"Canonical does a good job at protecting its supported Ubuntu Linux distributions by releasing security updates from time to time. On December 3, Ubuntu 12.04 LTS received a major kernel upgrade that fixed twelve vulnerabilities discovered in the upstream Linux 3.2 kernel by various developers (eight of them were discovered by Kees Cook).

The first security issue is an information leak discovered in the Linux kernel's IPv6 network stack – it could allow a remote attacker to cause a DoS (Denial of Service) attack and obtain sensitive information, and the second one was a flaw in the Linux kernel’s Xen subsystem – it could allow a privileged user in the guest OS to destroy data on the disk.

The third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth security issues were discovered in the Linux kernel’s HID (Human Interface Device) subsystem, allowing a physically proximate attacker to cause a DoS (Denial of Service), execute arbitrary code, obtain sensitive information from kernel memory.

The eleventh security issue was discovered by Alan Chester in Linux kernel’s IPv6 Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) – it could allow a remote attacker to obtain sensitive information, and the twelfth one was discovered by Dmitry Vyukov in the Linux kernel's handling of IPv6 UFO (UDP Fragmentation Offload) processing – it could allow a remote attacker to cause a DoS (Denial of Service) attack.

As usual, these security flaws can be fixed if you upgrade your Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin) system(s) to the linux-image-3.2.0-57 (3.2.0-57.87) package(s). To apply the kernel update, run the Update Manager application or follow the detailed instructions provided by Canonical on this web page https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Security/Upgrades.

Users are urged to update their Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin) systems as soon as possible. Don't forget to reboot your computer after the upgrade!" -Softpedia

No comments:

Post a Comment