The Linux kernel before 2.6.39 does not properly create transparent huge pages in response to a MAP_PRIVATE mmap system call on /dev/zero, which allows local users to cause a denial of service (system crash) via a crafted application.

The remote Oracle Linux 6 host has packages installed that are affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the ELSA-2011-0928 advisory.

    - [net] fix netns vs proto registration ordering (Wade Mealing) [702305 702306] {CVE-2011-1767     CVE-2011-1768}

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Oracle Linux security advisory.

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

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

This update fixes the following security issues :

  - It was found that the receive hook in the ipip_init()     function in the ipip module, and in the ipgre_init()     function in the ip_gre module, could be called before     network namespaces setup is complete. If packets were     received at the time the ipip or ip_gre module was still     being loaded into the kernel, it could cause a denial of     service. (CVE-2011-1767, CVE-2011-1768, Moderate)

  - It was found that an mmap() call with the MAP_PRIVATE     flag on '/dev/zero' would create transparent hugepages     and trigger a certain robustness check. A local,     unprivileged user could use this flaw to cause a denial     of service. (CVE-2011-2479, Moderate)

This update also fixes various bugs. Documentation for these bug fixes will be available shortly from the Technical Notes document linked to in the References section.

Users should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backported patches to resolve these issues, and fix the bugs noted in the Technical Notes. The system must be rebooted for this update to take effect.

Andrea Righi discovered a race condition in the KSM memory merging support. If KSM was being used, a local attacker could exploit this to crash the system, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2011-2183)

It was discovered that an mmap() call with the MAP_PRIVATE flag on '/dev/zero' was incorrectly handled. A local attacker could exploit this to crash the system, leading to a denial of service.
(CVE-2011-2479)

Vasily Averin discovered that the NFS Lock Manager (NLM) incorrectly handled unlock requests. A local attacker could exploit this to cause a denial of service. (CVE-2011-2491)

Vasiliy Kulikov discovered that taskstats did not enforce access restrictions. A local attacker could exploit this to read certain information, leading to a loss of privacy. (CVE-2011-2494)

Vasiliy Kulikov discovered that /proc/PID/io did not enforce access restrictions. A local attacker could exploit this to read certain information, leading to a loss of privacy. (CVE-2011-2495)

Robert Swiecki discovered that mapping extensions were incorrectly handled. A local attacker could exploit this to crash the system, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2011-2496)

It was discovered that the wireless stack incorrectly verified SSID lengths. A local attacker could exploit this to cause a denial of service or gain root privileges. (CVE-2011-2517)

Christian Ohm discovered that the perf command looks for configuration files in the current directory. If a privileged user were tricked into running perf in a directory containing a malicious configuration file, an attacker could run arbitrary commands and possibly gain privileges. (CVE-2011-2905)

Vasiliy Kulikov discovered that the Comedi driver did not correctly clear memory. A local attacker could exploit this to read kernel stack memory, leading to a loss of privacy. (CVE-2011-2909)

Yogesh Sharma discovered that CIFS did not correctly handle UNCs that had no prefixpaths. A local attacker with access to a CIFS partition could exploit this to crash the system, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2011-3363)

It was discovered that the /proc filesystem did not correctly handle permission changes when programs executed. A local attacker could hold open files to examine details about programs running with higher privileges, potentially increasing the chances of exploiting additional vulnerabilities. (CVE-2011-1020)

Vasiliy Kulikov discovered that the Bluetooth stack did not correctly clear memory. A local attacker could exploit this to read kernel stack memory, leading to a loss of privacy. (CVE-2011-1078)

Vasiliy Kulikov discovered that the Bluetooth stack did not correctly check that device name strings were NULL terminated. A local attacker could exploit this to crash the system, leading to a denial of service, or leak contents of kernel stack memory, leading to a loss of privacy. (CVE-2011-1079)

Vasiliy Kulikov discovered that bridge network filtering did not check that name fields were NULL terminated. A local attacker could exploit this to leak contents of kernel stack memory, leading to a loss of privacy. (CVE-2011-1080)

Johan Hovold discovered that the DCCP network stack did not correctly handle certain packet combinations. A remote attacker could send specially crafted network traffic that would crash the system, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2011-1093)

Peter Huewe discovered that the TPM device did not correctly initialize memory. A local attacker could exploit this to read kernel heap memory contents, leading to a loss of privacy. (CVE-2011-1160)

Dan Rosenberg discovered that the IRDA subsystem did not correctly check certain field sizes. If a system was using IRDA, a remote attacker could send specially crafted traffic to crash the system or gain root privileges. (CVE-2011-1180)

Ryan Sweat discovered that the GRO code did not correctly validate memory. In some configurations on systems using VLANs, a remote attacker could send specially crafted traffic to crash the system, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2011-1478)

It was discovered that the security fix for CVE-2010-4250 introduced a regression. A remote attacker could exploit this to crash the system, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2011-1479)

Dan Rosenberg discovered that the X.25 Rose network stack did not correctly handle certain fields. If a system was running with Rose enabled, a remote attacker could send specially crafted traffic to gain root privileges. (CVE-2011-1493)

It was discovered that the Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) implementation incorrectly calculated lengths. If the net.sctp.addip_enable variable was turned on, a remote attacker could send specially crafted traffic to crash the system. (CVE-2011-1573)

Ryan Sweat discovered that the kernel incorrectly handled certain VLAN packets. On some systems, a remote attacker could send specially crafted traffic to crash the system, leading to a denial of service.
(CVE-2011-1576)

Timo Warns discovered that the GUID partition parsing routines did not correctly validate certain structures. A local attacker with physical access could plug in a specially crafted block device to crash the system, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2011-1577)

Phil Oester discovered that the network bonding system did not correctly handle large queues. On some systems, a remote attacker could send specially crafted traffic to crash the system, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2011-1581)

It was discovered that CIFS incorrectly handled authentication. When a user had a CIFS share mounted that required authentication, a local user could mount the same share without knowing the correct password.
(CVE-2011-1585)

It was discovered that the GRE protocol incorrectly handled netns initialization. A remote attacker could send a packet while the ip_gre module was loading, and crash the system, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2011-1767)

It was discovered that the IP/IP protocol incorrectly handled netns initialization. A remote attacker could send a packet while the ipip module was loading, and crash the system, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2011-1768)

Ben Greear discovered that CIFS did not correctly handle direct I/O. A local attacker with access to a CIFS partition could exploit this to crash the system, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2011-1771)

Timo Warns discovered that the EFI GUID partition table was not correctly parsed. A physically local attacker that could insert mountable devices could exploit this to crash the system or possibly gain root privileges. (CVE-2011-1776)

Vasiliy Kulikov and Dan Rosenberg discovered that ecryptfs did not correctly check the origin of mount points. A local attacker could exploit this to trick the system into unmounting arbitrary mount points, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2011-1833)

Ben Hutchings reported a flaw in the kernel's handling of corrupt LDM partitions. A local user could exploit this to cause a denial of service or escalate privileges. (CVE-2011-2182)

Dan Rosenberg discovered that the IPv4 diagnostic routines did not correctly validate certain requests. A local attacker could exploit this to consume CPU resources, leading to a denial of service.
(CVE-2011-2213)

It was discovered that an mmap() call with the MAP_PRIVATE flag on '/dev/zero' was incorrectly handled. A local attacker could exploit this to crash the system, leading to a denial of service.
(CVE-2011-2479)

Vasiliy Kulikov discovered that taskstats listeners were not correctly handled. A local attacker could exploit this to exhaust memory and CPU resources, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2011-2484)

It was discovered that Bluetooth l2cap and rfcomm did not correctly initialize structures. A local attacker could exploit this to read portions of the kernel stack, leading to a loss of privacy.
(CVE-2011-2492)

Sami Liedes discovered that ext4 did not correctly handle missing root inodes. A local attacker could trigger the mount of a specially crafted filesystem to cause the system to crash, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2011-2493)

Robert Swiecki discovered that mapping extensions were incorrectly handled. A local attacker could exploit this to crash the system, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2011-2496)

Dan Rosenberg discovered that the Bluetooth stack incorrectly handled certain L2CAP requests. If a system was using Bluetooth, a remote attacker could send specially crafted traffic to crash the system or gain root privileges. (CVE-2011-2497)

Ben Pfaff discovered that Classless Queuing Disciplines (qdiscs) were being incorrectly handled. A local attacker could exploit this to crash the system, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2011-2525)

It was discovered that GFS2 did not correctly check block sizes. A local attacker could exploit this to crash the system, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2011-2689)

It was discovered that the EXT4 filesystem contained multiple off-by-one flaws. A local attacker could exploit this to crash the system, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2011-2695)

Fernando Gont discovered that the IPv6 stack used predictable fragment identification numbers. A remote attacker could exploit this to exhaust network resources, leading to a denial of service.
(CVE-2011-2699)

Mauro Carvalho Chehab discovered that the si4713 radio driver did not correctly check the length of memory copies. If this hardware was available, a local attacker could exploit this to crash the system or gain root privileges. (CVE-2011-2700)

Herbert Xu discovered that certain fields were incorrectly handled when Generic Receive Offload (CVE-2011-2723)

The performance counter subsystem did not correctly handle certain counters. A local attacker could exploit this to crash the system, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2011-2918)

Time Warns discovered that long symlinks were incorrectly handled on Be filesystems. A local attacker could exploit this with a malformed Be filesystem and crash the system, leading to a denial of service.
(CVE-2011-2928)

Qianfeng Zhang discovered that the bridge networking interface incorrectly handled certain network packets. A remote attacker could exploit this to crash the system, leading to a denial of service.
(CVE-2011-2942)

Dan Kaminsky discovered that the kernel incorrectly handled random sequence number generation. An attacker could use this flaw to possibly predict sequence numbers and inject packets. (CVE-2011-3188)

Darren Lavender discovered that the CIFS client incorrectly handled certain large values. A remote attacker with a malicious server could exploit this to crash the system or possibly execute arbitrary code as the root user. (CVE-2011-3191)

Yasuaki Ishimatsu discovered a flaw in the kernel's clock implementation. A local unprivileged attacker could exploit this causing a denial of service. (CVE-2011-3209)

Yogesh Sharma discovered that CIFS did not correctly handle UNCs that had no prefixpaths. A local attacker with access to a CIFS partition could exploit this to crash the system, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2011-3363)

A flaw was discovered in the Linux kernel's AppArmor security interface when invalid information was written to it. An unprivileged local user could use this to cause a denial of service on the system.
(CVE-2011-3619)

A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's /proc/*/*map* interface. A local, unprivileged user could exploit this flaw to cause a denial of service. (CVE-2011-3637)

Scot Doyle discovered that the bridge networking interface incorrectly handled certain network packets. A remote attacker could exploit this to crash the system, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2011-4087)

A bug was found in the way headroom check was performed in udp6_ufo_fragment() function. A remote attacker could use this flaw to crash the system. (CVE-2011-4326)

Ben Hutchings discovered several flaws in the Linux Rose (X.25 PLP) layer. A local user or a remote user on an X.25 network could exploit these flaws to execute arbitrary code as root. (CVE-2011-4914).

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.

Aristide Fattori and Roberto Paleari reported a flaw in the Linux kernel's handling of IPv4 icmp packets. A remote user could exploit this to cause a denial of service. (CVE-2011-1927)

Goldwyn Rodrigues discovered that the OCFS2 filesystem did not correctly clear memory when writing certain file holes. A local attacker could exploit this to read uninitialized data from the disk, leading to a loss of privacy. (CVE-2011-0463)

Timo Warns discovered that the LDM disk partition handling code did not correctly handle certain values. By inserting a specially crafted disk device, a local attacker could exploit this to gain root privileges. (CVE-2011-1017)

Vasiliy Kulikov discovered that the Bluetooth stack did not correctly clear memory. A local attacker could exploit this to read kernel stack memory, leading to a loss of privacy. (CVE-2011-1078)

Vasiliy Kulikov discovered that the Bluetooth stack did not correctly check that device name strings were NULL terminated. A local attacker could exploit this to crash the system, leading to a denial of service, or leak contents of kernel stack memory, leading to a loss of privacy. (CVE-2011-1079)

Vasiliy Kulikov discovered that bridge network filtering did not check that name fields were NULL terminated. A local attacker could exploit this to leak contents of kernel stack memory, leading to a loss of privacy. (CVE-2011-1080)

Johan Hovold discovered that the DCCP network stack did not correctly handle certain packet combinations. A remote attacker could send specially crafted network traffic that would crash the system, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2011-1093)

Peter Huewe discovered that the TPM device did not correctly initialize memory. A local attacker could exploit this to read kernel heap memory contents, leading to a loss of privacy. (CVE-2011-1160)

Vasiliy Kulikov discovered that the netfilter code did not check certain strings copied from userspace. A local attacker with netfilter access could exploit this to read kernel memory or crash the system, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2011-1170, CVE-2011-1171, CVE-2011-1172, CVE-2011-2534)

Vasiliy Kulikov discovered that the Acorn Universal Networking driver did not correctly initialize memory. A remote attacker could send specially crafted traffic to read kernel stack memory, leading to a loss of privacy. (CVE-2011-1173)

Dan Rosenberg discovered that the IRDA subsystem did not correctly check certain field sizes. If a system was using IRDA, a remote attacker could send specially crafted traffic to crash the system or gain root privileges. (CVE-2011-1180)

Dan Rosenberg reported errors in the OSS (Open Sound System) MIDI interface. A local attacker on non-x86 systems might be able to cause a denial of service. (CVE-2011-1476)

Dan Rosenberg reported errors in the kernel's OSS (Open Sound System) driver for Yamaha FM synthesizer chips. A local user can exploit this to cause memory corruption, causing a denial of service or privilege escalation. (CVE-2011-1477)

It was discovered that the security fix for CVE-2010-4250 introduced a regression. A remote attacker could exploit this to crash the system, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2011-1479)

Dan Rosenberg discovered that MPT devices did not correctly validate certain values in ioctl calls. If these drivers were loaded, a local attacker could exploit this to read arbitrary kernel memory, leading to a loss of privacy. (CVE-2011-1494, CVE-2011-1495)

Tavis Ormandy discovered that the pidmap function did not correctly handle large requests. A local attacker could exploit this to crash the system, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2011-1593)

Oliver Hartkopp and Dave Jones discovered that the CAN network driver did not correctly validate certain socket structures. If this driver was loaded, a local attacker could crash the system, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2011-1598, CVE-2011-1748)

Vasiliy Kulikov discovered that the AGP driver did not check certain ioctl values. A local attacker with access to the video subsystem could exploit this to crash the system, leading to a denial of service, or possibly gain root privileges. (CVE-2011-1745, CVE-2011-2022)

Vasiliy Kulikov discovered that the AGP driver did not check the size of certain memory allocations. A local attacker with access to the video subsystem could exploit this to run the system out of memory, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2011-1746)

Dan Rosenberg reported an error in the old ABI compatibility layer of ARM kernels. A local attacker could exploit this flaw to cause a denial of service or gain root privileges. (CVE-2011-1759)

Dan Rosenberg discovered that the DCCP stack did not correctly handle certain packet structures. A remote attacker could exploit this to crash the system, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2011-1770)

Ben Greear discovered that CIFS did not correctly handle direct I/O. A local attacker with access to a CIFS partition could exploit this to crash the system, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2011-1771)

Timo Warns discovered that the EFI GUID partition table was not correctly parsed. A physically local attacker that could insert mountable devices could exploit this to crash the system or possibly gain root privileges. (CVE-2011-1776)

It was discovered that an mmap() call with the MAP_PRIVATE flag on '/dev/zero' was incorrectly handled. A local attacker could exploit this to crash the system, leading to a denial of service.
(CVE-2011-2479)

Robert Swiecki discovered that mapping extensions were incorrectly handled. A local attacker could exploit this to crash the system, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2011-2496)

The linux kernel did not properly account for PTE pages when deciding which task to kill in out of memory conditions. A local, unprivileged could exploit this flaw to cause a denial of service. (CVE-2011-2498)

A flaw was found in the b43 driver in the Linux kernel. An attacker could use this flaw to cause a denial of service if the system has an active wireless interface using the b43 driver. (CVE-2011-3359)

Yogesh Sharma discovered that CIFS did not correctly handle UNCs that had no prefixpaths. A local attacker with access to a CIFS partition could exploit this to crash the system, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2011-3363)

Dan Rosenberg discovered flaws in the linux Rose (X.25 PLP) layer used by amateur radio. A local user or a remote user on an X.25 network could exploit these flaws to execute arbitrary code as root.
(CVE-2011-4913).

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.

The remote Redhat Enterprise Linux 6 host has packages installed that are affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the RHSA-2011:0928 advisory.

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

    This update fixes the following security issues:

    * It was found that the receive hook in the ipip_init() function in the     ipip module, and in the ipgre_init() function in the ip_gre module, could     be called before network namespaces setup is complete. If packets were     received at the time the ipip or ip_gre module was still being loaded into     the kernel, it could cause a denial of service. (CVE-2011-1767,     CVE-2011-1768, Moderate)

    * It was found that an mmap() call with the MAP_PRIVATE flag on /dev/zero     would create transparent hugepages and trigger a certain robustness check.
    A local, unprivileged user could use this flaw to cause a denial of     service. (CVE-2011-2479, Moderate)

    This update also fixes various bugs. Documentation for these bug fixes will     be available shortly from the Technical Notes document linked to in the     References section.

    Users should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backported     patches to resolve these issues, and fix the bugs noted in the Technical     Notes. 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 these issues but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

ID	Name	Product	Family	Severity
68305	Oracle Linux 6 : kernel (ELSA-2011-0928)	Nessus	Oracle Linux Local Security Checks	medium
61082	Scientific Linux Security Update : kernel on SL6.x i386/x86_64	Nessus	Scientific Linux Local Security Checks	medium
56949	USN-1281-1 : linux-ti-omap4 vulnerabilities	Nessus	Ubuntu Local Security Checks	high
56768	Ubuntu 10.04 LTS : linux-lts-backport-natty vulnerabilities (USN-1256-1)	Nessus	Ubuntu Local Security Checks	critical
55591	Ubuntu 11.04 : linux vulnerabilities (USN-1167-1)	Nessus	Ubuntu Local Security Checks	medium
55584	RHEL 6 : kernel (RHSA-2011:0928)	Nessus	Red Hat Local Security Checks	medium

Detections

Analytics

CVE-2011-2479

medium

Tenable Plugins

medium

medium

high

critical

medium

medium