Ubuntu 20.04 LTS : Linux kernel vulnerabilities (USN-4949-1)

high Nessus Plugin ID 149411

Synopsis

The remote Ubuntu host is missing one or more security updates.

Description

The remote Ubuntu 20.04 LTS host has a package installed that is affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the USN-4949-1 advisory.

- A NULL pointer dereference flaw was found in the Linux kernel's GPU Nouveau driver functionality in versions prior to 5.12-rc1 in the way the user calls ioctl DRM_IOCTL_NOUVEAU_CHANNEL_ALLOC. This flaw allows a local user to crash the system. (CVE-2020-25639)

- An issue was discovered in the Linux kernel 3.11 through 5.10.16, as used by Xen. To service requests to the PV backend, the driver maps grant references provided by the frontend. In this process, errors may be encountered. In one case, an error encountered earlier might be discarded by later processing, resulting in the caller assuming successful mapping, and hence subsequent operations trying to access space that wasn't mapped. In another case, internal state would be insufficiently updated, preventing safe recovery from the error. This affects drivers/block/xen-blkback/blkback.c. (CVE-2021-26930)

- An issue was discovered in the Linux kernel 2.6.39 through 5.10.16, as used in Xen. Block, net, and SCSI backends consider certain errors a plain bug, deliberately causing a kernel crash. For errors potentially being at least under the influence of guests (such as out of memory conditions), it isn't correct to assume a plain bug. Memory allocations potentially causing such crashes occur only when Linux is running in PV mode, though. This affects drivers/block/xen-blkback/blkback.c and drivers/xen/xen-scsiback.c.
(CVE-2021-26931)

- An issue was discovered in the Linux kernel through 5.11.6. fastrpc_internal_invoke in drivers/misc/fastrpc.c does not prevent user applications from sending kernel RPC messages, aka CID-20c40794eb85. This is a related issue to CVE-2019-2308. (CVE-2021-28375)

- An issue was discovered in the Linux kernel through 5.11.10. drivers/net/ethernet/freescale/gianfar.c in the Freescale Gianfar Ethernet driver allows attackers to cause a system crash because a negative fragment size is calculated in situations involving an rx queue overrun when jumbo packets are used and NAPI is enabled, aka CID-d8861bab48b6. (CVE-2021-29264)

- An issue was discovered in the Linux kernel before 5.11.7. usbip_sockfd_store in drivers/usb/usbip/stub_dev.c allows attackers to cause a denial of service (GPF) because the stub-up sequence has race conditions during an update of the local and shared status, aka CID-9380afd6df70.
(CVE-2021-29265)

- An issue was discovered in the Linux kernel before 5.11.9. drivers/vhost/vdpa.c has a use-after-free because v->config_ctx has an invalid value upon re-opening a character device, aka CID-f6bbf0010ba0.
(CVE-2021-29266)

- An issue was discovered in the Linux kernel before 5.11.11. tipc_nl_retrieve_key in net/tipc/node.c does not properly validate certain data sizes, aka CID-0217ed2848e8. (CVE-2021-29646)

- An issue was discovered in the Linux kernel before 5.11.11. The netfilter subsystem allows attackers to cause a denial of service (panic) because net/netfilter/x_tables.c and include/linux/netfilter/x_tables.h lack a full memory barrier upon the assignment of a new table value, aka CID-175e476b8cdf.
(CVE-2021-29650)

- The eBPF RINGBUF bpf_ringbuf_reserve() function in the Linux kernel did not check that the allocated size was smaller than the ringbuf size, allowing an attacker to perform out-of-bounds writes within the kernel and therefore, arbitrary code execution. This issue was fixed via commit 4b81ccebaeee (bpf, ringbuf: Deny reserve of buffers larger than ringbuf) (v5.13-rc4) and backported to the stable kernels in v5.12.4, v5.11.21, and v5.10.37. It was introduced via 457f44363a88 (bpf: Implement BPF ring buffer and verifier support for it) (v5.8-rc1). (CVE-2021-3489)

- The eBPF ALU32 bounds tracking for bitwise ops (AND, OR and XOR) in the Linux kernel did not properly update 32-bit bounds, which could be turned into out of bounds reads and writes in the Linux kernel and therefore, arbitrary code execution. This issue was fixed via commit 049c4e13714e (bpf: Fix alu32 const subreg bound tracking on bitwise operations) (v5.13-rc4) and backported to the stable kernels in v5.12.4, v5.11.21, and v5.10.37. The AND/OR issues were introduced by commit 3f50f132d840 (bpf: Verifier, do explicit ALU32 bounds tracking) (5.7-rc1) and the XOR variant was introduced by 2921c90d4718 (bpf:Fix a verifier failure with xor) ( 5.10-rc1). (CVE-2021-3490)

- The io_uring subsystem in the Linux kernel allowed the MAX_RW_COUNT limit to be bypassed in the PROVIDE_BUFFERS operation, which led to negative values being usedin mem_rw when reading /proc/<PID>/mem.
This could be used to create a heap overflow leading to arbitrary code execution in the kernel. It was addressed via commit d1f82808877b (io_uring: truncate lengths larger than MAX_RW_COUNT on provide buffers) (v5.13-rc1) and backported to the stable kernels in v5.12.4, v5.11.21, and v5.10.37. It was introduced in ddf0322db79c (io_uring: add IORING_OP_PROVIDE_BUFFERS) (v5.7-rc1). (CVE-2021-3491)

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

Solution

Update the affected kernel package.

See Also

https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-4949-1

Plugin Details

Severity: High

ID: 149411

File Name: ubuntu_USN-4949-1.nasl

Version: 1.9

Type: local

Agent: unix

Published: 5/12/2021

Updated: 1/9/2024

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

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Critical

Score: 9.0

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 7.2

Temporal Score: 6.3

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

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2021-3491

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 8.8

Temporal Score: 8.4

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

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

Vulnerability Information

CPE: cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:20.04:-:lts, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-image-5.8.0-53-generic, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-image-5.8.0-53-generic-64k, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-image-5.8.0-53-generic-lpae, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-image-5.8.0-53-lowlatency

Required KB Items: Host/cpu, Host/Debian/dpkg-l, Host/Ubuntu, Host/Ubuntu/release

Exploit Available: true

Exploit Ease: Exploits are available

Patch Publication Date: 5/11/2021

Vulnerability Publication Date: 2/16/2021

Exploitable With

Core Impact

Metasploit (Linux eBPF ALU32 32-bit Invalid Bounds Tracking LPE)

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2020-25639, CVE-2021-26930, CVE-2021-26931, CVE-2021-28375, CVE-2021-29264, CVE-2021-29265, CVE-2021-29266, CVE-2021-29646, CVE-2021-29650, CVE-2021-3489, CVE-2021-3490, CVE-2021-3491

USN: 4949-1