Amazon Linux AMI : kernel (ALAS-2019-1165)

high Nessus Plugin ID 122602

Synopsis

The remote Amazon Linux AMI host is missing a security update.

Description

A use-after-free vulnerability was found in the way the Linux kernel's KVM hypervisor emulates a preemption timer for L2 guests when nested (=1) virtualization is enabled. This high resolution timer(hrtimer) runs when a L2 guest is active. After VM exit, the sync_vmcs12() timer object is stopped. The use-after-free occurs if the timer object is freed before calling sync_vmcs12() routine. A guest user/process could use this flaw to crash the host kernel resulting in a denial of service or, potentially, gain privileged access to a system.
(CVE-2019-7221)

A use-after-free vulnerability was found in the way the Linux kernel's KVM hypervisor implements its device control API. While creating a device via kvm_ioctl_create_device(), the device holds a reference to a VM object, later this reference is transferred to the caller's file descriptor table. If such file descriptor was to be closed, reference count to the VM object could become zero, potentially leading to a use-after-free issue. A user/process could use this flaw to crash the guest VM resulting in a denial of service issue or, potentially, gain privileged access to a system. (CVE-2019-6974)

An information leakage issue was found in the way Linux kernel's KVM hypervisor handled page fault exceptions while emulating instructions like VMXON, VMCLEAR, VMPTRLD, and VMWRITE with memory address as an operand. It occurs if the operand is a mmio address, as the returned exception object holds uninitialized stack memory contents. A guest user/process could use this flaw to leak host's stack memory contents to a guest. (CVE-2019-7222)

Solution

Run 'yum update kernel' to update your system.

See Also

https://alas.aws.amazon.com/ALAS-2019-1165.html

Plugin Details

Severity: High

ID: 122602

File Name: ala_ALAS-2019-1165.nasl

Version: 1.2

Type: local

Agent: unix

Published: 3/5/2019

Updated: 4/2/2019

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

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 6.7

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 6.8

Temporal Score: 5.3

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

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 8.1

Temporal Score: 7.3

Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/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:amazon:linux:kernel, p-cpe:/a:amazon:linux:kernel-debuginfo, p-cpe:/a:amazon:linux:kernel-debuginfo-common-i686, p-cpe:/a:amazon:linux:kernel-debuginfo-common-x86_64, p-cpe:/a:amazon:linux:kernel-devel, p-cpe:/a:amazon:linux:kernel-headers, p-cpe:/a:amazon:linux:kernel-tools, p-cpe:/a:amazon:linux:kernel-tools-debuginfo, p-cpe:/a:amazon:linux:kernel-tools-devel, p-cpe:/a:amazon:linux:perf, p-cpe:/a:amazon:linux:perf-debuginfo, cpe:/o:amazon:linux

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

Exploit Available: true

Exploit Ease: Exploits are available

Patch Publication Date: 3/4/2019

Vulnerability Publication Date: 2/15/2019

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2019-6974, CVE-2019-7221, CVE-2019-7222

ALAS: 2019-1165