The kvm_emulate_hypercall function in arch/x86/kvm/x86.c in KVM in the Linux kernel 2.6.25-rc1, and other versions before 2.6.31, when running on x86 systems, does not prevent access to MMU hypercalls from ring 0, which allows local guest OS users to cause a denial of service (guest kernel crash) and read or write guest kernel memory via unspecified "random addresses."

From Red Hat Security Advisory 2009:1465 :

Updated kvm packages that fix one security issue and several bugs are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.

This update has been rated as having important security impact by the Red Hat Security Response Team.

KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) is a full virtualization solution for Linux on AMD64 and Intel 64 systems. KVM is a Linux kernel module built for the standard Red Hat Enterprise Linux kernel.

The kvm_emulate_hypercall() implementation was missing a check for the Current Privilege Level (CPL). A local, unprivileged user in a virtual machine could use this flaw to cause a local denial of service or escalate their privileges within that virtual machine. (CVE-2009-3290)

This update also fixes the following bugs :

* non-maskable interrupts (NMI) were not supported on systems with AMD processors. As a consequence, Windows Server 2008 R2 guests running with more than one virtual CPU assigned on systems with AMD processors would hang at the Windows shut down screen when a restart was attempted. This update adds support for NMI filtering on systems with AMD processors, allowing clean restarts of Windows Server 2008 R2 guests running with multiple virtual CPUs. (BZ#520694)

* significant performance issues for guests running 64-bit editions of Windows. This update improves performance for guests running 64-bit editions of Windows. (BZ#521793)

* Windows guests may have experienced time drift. (BZ#521794)

* removing the Red Hat VirtIO Ethernet Adapter from a guest running Windows Server 2008 R2 caused KVM to crash. With this update, device removal should not cause this issue. (BZ#524557)

All KVM users should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backported patches to resolve these issues. Note: The procedure in the Solution section must be performed before this update takes effect.

Updated kvm packages that fix one security issue and several bugs are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.

This update has been rated as having important security impact by the Red Hat Security Response Team.

KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) is a full virtualization solution for Linux on AMD64 and Intel 64 systems. KVM is a Linux kernel module built for the standard Red Hat Enterprise Linux kernel.

The kvm_emulate_hypercall() implementation was missing a check for the Current Privilege Level (CPL). A local, unprivileged user in a virtual machine could use this flaw to cause a local denial of service or escalate their privileges within that virtual machine. (CVE-2009-3290)

This update also fixes the following bugs :

* non-maskable interrupts (NMI) were not supported on systems with AMD processors. As a consequence, Windows Server 2008 R2 guests running with more than one virtual CPU assigned on systems with AMD processors would hang at the Windows shut down screen when a restart was attempted. This update adds support for NMI filtering on systems with AMD processors, allowing clean restarts of Windows Server 2008 R2 guests running with multiple virtual CPUs. (BZ#520694)

* significant performance issues for guests running 64-bit editions of Windows. This update improves performance for guests running 64-bit editions of Windows. (BZ#521793)

* Windows guests may have experienced time drift. (BZ#521794)

* removing the Red Hat VirtIO Ethernet Adapter from a guest running Windows Server 2008 R2 caused KVM to crash. With this update, device removal should not cause this issue. (BZ#524557)

All KVM users should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backported patches to resolve these issues. Note: The procedure in the Solution section must be performed before this update takes effect.

Notice: Debian 5.0.4, the next point release of Debian 'lenny', will include a new default value for the mmap_min_addr tunable. This change will add an additional safeguard against a class of security vulnerabilities known as 'NULL pointer dereference' vulnerabilities, but it will need to be overridden when using certain applications.
Additional information about this change, including instructions for making this change locally in advance of 5.0.4 (recommended), can be found at: https://wiki.debian.org/mmap_min_addr.

Several vulnerabilities have been discovered in the Linux kernel that may lead to a denial of service, sensitive memory leak or privilege escalation. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project identifies the following problems :

  - CVE-2009-2695     Eric Paris provided several fixes to increase the     protection provided by the mmap_min_addr tunable against     NULL pointer dereference vulnerabilities.

  - CVE-2009-2903     Mark Smith discovered a memory leak in the appletalk     implementation. When the appletalk and ipddp modules are     loaded, but no ipddp'N' device is found, remote     attackers can cause a denial of service by consuming     large amounts of system memory.

  - CVE-2009-2908     Loic Minier discovered an issue in the eCryptfs     filesystem. A local user can cause a denial of service     (kernel oops) by causing a dentry value to go negative.

  - CVE-2009-2909     Arjan van de Ven discovered an issue in the AX.25     protocol implementation. A specially crafted call to     setsockopt() can result in a denial of service (kernel     oops).

  - CVE-2009-2910     Jan Beulich discovered the existence of a sensitive     kernel memory leak. Systems running the 'amd64' kernel     do not properly sanitize registers for 32-bit processes.

  - CVE-2009-3001     Jiri Slaby fixed a sensitive memory leak issue in the     ANSI/IEEE 802.2 LLC implementation. This is not     exploitable in the Debian lenny kernel as root     privileges are required to exploit this issue.

  - CVE-2009-3002     Eric Dumazet fixed several sensitive memory leaks in the     IrDA, X.25 PLP (Rose), NET/ROM, Acorn Econet/AUN, and     Controller Area Network (CAN) implementations. Local     users can exploit these issues to gain access to kernel     memory.

  - CVE-2009-3286     Eric Paris discovered an issue with the NFSv4 server     implementation. When an O_EXCL create fails, files may     be left with corrupted permissions, possibly granting     unintentional privileges to other local users.

  - CVE-2009-3290     Jan Kiszka noticed that the kvm_emulate_hypercall     function in KVM does not prevent access to MMU     hypercalls from ring 0, which allows local guest OS     users to cause a denial of service (guest kernel crash)     and read or write guest kernel memory.

  - CVE-2009-3613     Alistair Strachan reported an issue in the r8169 driver.
    Remote users can cause a denial of service (IOMMU space     exhaustion and system crash) by transmitting a large     amount of jumbo frames.

Several vulnerabilities have been discovered in kvm, a full virtualization system. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project identifies the following problems :

  - CVE-2008-5714     Chris Webb discovered an off-by-one bug limiting KVM's     VNC passwords to 7 characters. This flaw might make it     easier for remote attackers to guess the VNC password,     which is limited to seven characters where eight was     intended.

  - CVE-2009-3290     It was discovered that the kvm_emulate_hypercall     function in KVM does not prevent access to MMU     hypercalls from ring 0, which allows local guest OS     users to cause a denial of service (guest kernel crash)     and read or write guest kernel memory.

The oldstable distribution (etch) does not contain kvm.

Some vulnerabilities were discovered and corrected in the Linux 2.6 kernel :

The personality subsystem in the Linux kernel before 2.6.31-rc3 has a PER_CLEAR_ON_SETID setting that does not clear the ADDR_COMPAT_LAYOUT and MMAP_PAGE_ZERO flags when executing a setuid or setgid program, which makes it easier for local users to leverage the details of memory usage to (1) conduct NULL pointer dereference attacks, (2) bypass the mmap_min_addr protection mechanism, or (3) defeat address space layout randomization (ASLR). (CVE-2009-1895)

Stack-based buffer overflow in the parse_tag_11_packet function in fs/ecryptfs/keystore.c in the eCryptfs subsystem in the Linux kernel before 2.6.30.4 allows local users to cause a denial of service (system crash) or possibly gain privileges via vectors involving a crafted eCryptfs file, related to not ensuring that the key signature length in a Tag 11 packet is compatible with the key signature buffer size. (CVE-2009-2406)

Heap-based buffer overflow in the parse_tag_3_packet function in fs/ecryptfs/keystore.c in the eCryptfs subsystem in the Linux kernel before 2.6.30.4 allows local users to cause a denial of service (system crash) or possibly gain privileges via vectors involving a crafted eCryptfs file, related to a large encrypted key size in a Tag 3 packet. (CVE-2009-2407)

The d_delete function in fs/ecryptfs/inode.c in eCryptfs in the Linux kernel 2.6.31 allows local users to cause a denial of service (kernel OOPS) and possibly execute arbitrary code via unspecified vectors that cause a negative dentry and trigger a NULL pointer dereference, as demonstrated via a Mutt temporary directory in an eCryptfs mount.
(CVE-2009-2908)

The kvm_emulate_hypercall function in arch/x86/kvm/x86.c in KVM in the Linux kernel 2.6.25-rc1, and other versions before 2.6.31, when running on x86 systems, does not prevent access to MMU hypercalls from ring 0, which allows local guest OS users to cause a denial of service (guest kernel crash) and read or write guest kernel memory via unspecified random addresses. (CVE-2009-3290)

Additionaly, it includes the fixes from the stable kernel version 2.6.27.37. It also fixes also fixes IBM x3650 M2 hanging when using both network interfaces and Wake on Lan problems on r8169. For details, check the package changelog.

To update your kernel, please follow the directions located at :

http://www.mandriva.com/en/security/kernelupdate

Update to kernel 2.6.30.9. Upstream change logs:
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.30.9 Also fixes :

  - Kernel stack randomization bug - NULL dereference in     r128 driver - ftrace memory corruption on module unload
    - boot hanging on some systems - some latency problems     caused by scheduler bugs

Note that Tenable Network Security has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Fedora security advisory. Tenable has attempted to automatically clean and format it as much as possible without introducing additional issues.

Solar Designer discovered that the z90crypt driver did not correctly check capabilities. A local attacker could exploit this to shut down the device, leading to a denial of service. Only affected Ubuntu 6.06.
(CVE-2009-1883)

Michael Buesch discovered that the SGI GRU driver did not correctly check the length when setting options. A local attacker could exploit this to write to the kernel stack, leading to root privilege escalation or a denial of service. Only affected Ubuntu 8.10 and 9.04.
(CVE-2009-2584)

It was discovered that SELinux did not fully implement the mmap_min_addr restrictions. A local attacker could exploit this to allocate the NULL memory page which could lead to further attacks against kernel NULL-dereference vulnerabilities. Ubuntu 6.06 was not affected. (CVE-2009-2695)

Cagri Coltekin discovered that the UDP stack did not correctly handle certain flags. A local user could send specially crafted commands and traffic to gain root privileges or crash the systeam, leading to a denial of service. Only affected Ubuntu 6.06. (CVE-2009-2698)

Hiroshi Shimamoto discovered that monotonic timers did not correctly validate parameters. A local user could make a specially crafted timer request to gain root privileges or crash the system, leading to a denial of service. Only affected Ubuntu 9.04. (CVE-2009-2767)

Michael Buesch discovered that the HPPA ISA EEPROM driver did not correctly validate positions. A local user could make a specially crafted request to gain root privileges or crash the system, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2009-2846)

Ulrich Drepper discovered that kernel signal stacks were not being correctly padded on 64-bit systems. A local attacker could send specially crafted calls to expose 4 bytes of kernel stack memory, leading to a loss of privacy. (CVE-2009-2847)

Jens Rosenboom discovered that the clone method did not correctly clear certain fields. A local attacker could exploit this to gain privileges or crash the system, leading to a denial of service.
(CVE-2009-2848)

It was discovered that the MD driver did not check certain sysfs files. A local attacker with write access to /sys could exploit this to cause a system crash, leading to a denial of service. Ubuntu 6.06 was not affected. (CVE-2009-2849)

Mark Smith discovered that the AppleTalk stack did not correctly manage memory. A remote attacker could send specially crafted traffic to cause the system to consume all available memory, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2009-2903)

Loic Minier discovered that eCryptfs did not correctly handle writing to certain deleted files. A local attacker could exploit this to gain root privileges or crash the system, leading to a denial of service.
Ubuntu 6.06 was not affected. (CVE-2009-2908)

It was discovered that the LLC, AppleTalk, IR, EConet, Netrom, and ROSE network stacks did not correctly initialize their data structures. A local attacker could make specially crafted calls to read kernel memory, leading to a loss of privacy. (CVE-2009-3001, CVE-2009-3002)

It was discovered that the randomization used for Address Space Layout Randomization was predictable within a small window of time. A local attacker could exploit this to leverage further attacks that require knowledge of userspace memory layouts. (CVE-2009-3238)

Eric Paris discovered that NFSv4 did not correctly handle file creation failures. An attacker with write access to an NFSv4 share could exploit this to create files with arbitrary mode bits, leading to privilege escalation or a loss of privacy. (CVE-2009-3286)

Bob Tracy discovered that the SCSI generic driver did not correctly use the right index for array access. A local attacker with write access to a CDR could exploit this to crash the system, leading to a denial of service. Only Ubuntu 9.04 was affected. (CVE-2009-3288)

Jan Kiszka discovered that KVM did not correctly validate certain hypercalls. A local unprivileged attacker in a virtual guest could exploit this to crash the guest kernel, leading to a denial of service. Ubuntu 6.06 was not affected. (CVE-2009-3290).

Note that Tenable Network Security has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Ubuntu security advisory. Tenable has attempted to automatically clean and format it as much as possible without introducing additional issues.

Update to kernel 2.6.27.35:
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.27.31 http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.27.32 http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.27.33 http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.27.34 http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.27.35

Note that Tenable Network Security has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Fedora security advisory. Tenable has attempted to automatically clean and format it as much as possible without introducing additional issues.

ID	Name	Product	Family	Severity
67932	Oracle Linux 5 : kvm (ELSA-2009-1465)	Nessus	Oracle Linux Local Security Checks	high
63897	RHEL 5 : kvm (RHSA-2009:1465)	Nessus	Red Hat Local Security Checks	high
44780	Debian DSA-1915-1 : linux-2.6 - privilege escalation/denial of service/sensitive memory leak	Nessus	Debian Local Security Checks	high
44772	Debian DSA-1907-1 : kvm - several vulnerabilities	Nessus	Debian Local Security Checks	high
43796	CentOS 5 : kvm (CESA-2009:1465)	Nessus	CentOS Local Security Checks	high
42284	Mandriva Linux Security Advisory : kernel (MDVSA-2009:289)	Nessus	Mandriva Local Security Checks	high
42271	Fedora 11 : kernel-2.6.30.9-90.fc11 (2009-10639)	Nessus	Fedora Local Security Checks	high
42209	Ubuntu 6.06 LTS / 8.04 LTS / 8.10 / 9.04 : linux, linux-source-2.6.15 vulnerabilities (USN-852-1)	Nessus	Ubuntu Local Security Checks	high
41973	Fedora 10 : kernel-2.6.27.35-170.2.94.fc10 (2009-10165)	Nessus	Fedora Local Security Checks	high

Detections

Analytics

CVE-2009-3290

medium

Tenable Plugins

high

high

high

high

high

high

high

high

high