RHEL 6 : kernel (RHSA-2012:0052)

high Nessus Plugin ID 57657

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Synopsis

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

Description

The remote Redhat Enterprise Linux 6 host has packages installed that are affected by a vulnerability as referenced in the RHSA-2012:0052 advisory.

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

This update fixes the following security issue:

* It was found that permissions were not checked properly in the Linux kernel when handling the /proc/[pid]/mem writing functionality. A local, unprivileged user could use this flaw to escalate their privileges. Refer to Red Hat Knowledgebase article DOC-69129, linked to in the References, for further information. (CVE-2012-0056, Important)

Red Hat would like to thank Jri Aedla for reporting this issue.

This update fixes the following bugs:

* The RHSA-2011:1849 kernel update introduced a bug in the Linux kernel scheduler, causing a WARNING: at kernel/sched.c:5915 thread_return message and a call trace to be logged. This message was harmless, and was not due to any system malfunctions or adverse behavior. With this update, the WARN_ON_ONCE() call in the scheduler that caused this harmless message has been removed. (BZ#768288)

* The RHSA-2011:1530 kernel update introduced a regression in the way the Linux kernel maps ELF headers for kernel modules into kernel memory.
If a third-party kernel module is compiled on a Red Hat Enterprise Linux system with a kernel prior to RHSA-2011:1530, then loading that module on a system with RHSA-2011:1530 kernel would result in corruption of one byte in the memory reserved for the module. In some cases, this could prevent the module from functioning correctly. (BZ#769595)

* On some SMP systems the tsc may erroneously be marked as unstable during early system boot or while the system is under heavy load. A Clocksource tsc unstable message was logged when this occurred. As a result the system would switch to the slower access, but higher precision HPET clock.

The tsc=reliable kernel parameter is supposed to avoid this problem by indicating that the system has a known good clock, however, the parameter only affected run time checks. A fix has been put in to avoid the boot time checks so that the TSC remains as the clock for the duration of system runtime. (BZ#755867)

Users should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backported patches to correct these issues. The system must be rebooted for this update to take effect.

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-2012:0052.

Plugin Details

Severity: High

ID: 57657

File Name: redhat-RHSA-2012-0052.nasl

Version: 1.34

Type: local

Agent: unix

Family: Red Hat Local Security Checks

Published: 1/24/2012

Updated: 4/14/2025

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

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Critical

Score: 9.7

Vendor

Vendor Severity: Important

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 6.9

Temporal Score: 6

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

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2012-0056

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 7.8

Temporal Score: 7.5

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

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

Vulnerability Information

CPE: p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:kernel, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:kernel-headers, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:kernel-firmware, cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:6, 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: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: 1/23/2012

Vulnerability Publication Date: 1/27/2012

Exploitable With

CANVAS (CANVAS)

Core Impact

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2012-0056

BID: 51625

CWE: 863

RHSA: 2012:0052

Detections

Analytics