RHEL 6 : kernel (RHSA-2012:1430)

high Nessus Plugin ID 64061

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-2012:1430 advisory.

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

This update fixes the following security issue:

* A flaw was found in the way socket buffers (skb) requiring TSO (TCP segment offloading) were handled by the sfc driver. If the skb did not fit within the minimum-size of the transmission queue, the network card could repeatedly reset itself. A remote attacker could use this flaw to cause a denial of service. (CVE-2012-3412, Important)

Red Hat would like to thank Ben Hutchings of Solarflare (tm) for reporting this issue.

This update also fixes the following bugs:

* In the hpet_next_event() function, an interrupt could have occurred between the read and write of the HPET (High Precision Event Timer) and the value of HPET_COUNTER was then beyond that being written to the comparator (HPET_Tn_CMP). Consequently, the timers were overdue for up to several minutes. Now, a comparison is performed between the value of the counter and the comparator in the HPET code. If the counter is beyond the comparator, the -ETIME error code is returned, which fixes this bug.
(BZ#855280)

* Traffic to the NFS server could trigger a kernel oops in the svc_tcp_clear_pages() function. The source code has been modified, and the kernel oops no longer occurs in this scenario. (BZ#856104)

* A kernel oops occurred in the nf_nat code when a bogus pointer was dereferenced in the nf_conn_nat structure. Consequently, if Source Network Address Translation (SNAT) was performed, incorrect information could be received by other CTS (Clear to Send) signals. A conntrack entry is now placed in the source hash after SNAT has been completed, which prevents the described problems. (BZ#865714)

Users should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backported patches to resolve 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-2012:1430.

See Also

http://www.nessus.org/u?7adf69de

https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2012:1430

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

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=844714

Plugin Details

Severity: High

ID: 64061

File Name: redhat-RHSA-2012-1430.nasl

Version: 1.21

Type: local

Agent: unix

Published: 1/24/2013

Updated: 4/15/2025

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

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 4.4

Vendor

Vendor Severity: Important

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 7.8

Temporal Score: 6.1

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

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2012-3412

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 7.5

Temporal Score: 6.7

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

Temporal Vector: CVSS:3.0/E:P/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, 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-kdump-devel, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:kernel-devel, cpe:/o:redhat:rhel_eus:6.1, 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 Ease: No known exploits are available

Patch Publication Date: 11/6/2012

Vulnerability Publication Date: 10/3/2012

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2012-3412

BID: 54763

CWE: 400

RHSA: 2012:1430