RHEL 7 : kernel (RHSA-2017:2869)

high Nessus Plugin ID 103766

Language:

Synopsis

The remote Red Hat host is missing a security update for kernel.

Description

The remote Redhat Enterprise Linux 7 host has packages installed that are affected by a vulnerability as referenced in the RHSA-2017:2869 advisory.

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

Security Fix(es):

* A race condition was found in the Linux kernel, present since v3.14-rc1 through v4.12. The race happens between threads of inotify_handle_event() and vfs_rename() while running the rename operation against the same file. As a result of the race the next slab data or the slab's free list pointer can be corrupted with attacker-controlled data, which may lead to the privilege escalation. (CVE-2017-7533, Important)

Red Hat would like to thank Leilei Lin (Alibaba Group), Fan Wu (The University of Hong Kong), and Shixiong Zhao (The University of Hong Kong) for reporting this issue.

Bug Fix(es):

* Previously, the 'stack:TID' annotation was applied to correctly mark the thread stack in a /proc/<pid>/maps file and it required processing the entire thread list to find the task of a stack Virtual Memory Area (VMA). Consequently, rendering and accessing /proc/<pid>/maps took a long time on systems with a large number of threads running. This update removes the annotation to make the /proc/<pid>/maps and /proc/<pid>/numa_maps files usable for higher thread counts. As a result, the system performance while rendering and accessing /proc/<pid>/maps has improved significantly. (BZ#1481722)

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Red Hat Enterprise Linux security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for this issue but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

Solution

Update the RHEL kernel package based on the guidance in RHSA-2017:2869.

Plugin Details

Severity: High

ID: 103766

File Name: redhat-RHSA-2017-2869.nasl

Version: 3.12

Type: local

Agent: unix

Family: Red Hat Local Security Checks

Published: 10/11/2017

Updated: 4/15/2025

Supported Sensors: Frictionless Assessment AWS, Frictionless Assessment Azure, Frictionless Assessment Agent, Nessus Agent, Agentless Assessment, Continuous Assessment, Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 6.7

Vendor

Vendor Severity: Important

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 6.9

Temporal Score: 5.4

Vector: CVSS2#AV:L/AC:M/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2017-7533

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 7

Temporal Score: 6.3

Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Temporal Vector: CVSS:3.0/E:P/RL:O/RC:C

Vulnerability Information

CPE: p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:kernel-tools, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:kernel, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:kernel-headers, cpe:/o:redhat:rhel_eus:7.2, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:kernel-tools-libs-devel, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:kernel-debug-devel, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:kernel-kdump, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:kernel-bootwrapper, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:kernel-tools-libs, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:python-perf, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:kernel-kdump-devel, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:kernel-devel, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:kernel-debug, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:perf

Required KB Items: Host/local_checks_enabled, Host/RedHat/release, Host/RedHat/rpm-list, Host/cpu

Exploit Available: true

Exploit Ease: Exploits are available

Patch Publication Date: 10/10/2017

Vulnerability Publication Date: 8/5/2017

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2017-7533

CWE: 642

RHSA: 2017:2869

Detections

Analytics