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Unity Linux 20.1070a Security Update: kernel (UTSA-2025-989154)
medium Nessus Plugin ID 273059
Synopsis
The Unity Linux host is missing one or more security updates.Description
The Unity Linux 20 host has a package installed that is affected by a vulnerability as referenced in the UTSA-2025-989154 advisory.In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
arm64: Restrict CPU_BIG_ENDIAN to GNU as or LLVM IAS 15.x or newer
Prior to LLVM 15.0.0, LLVM's integrated assembler would incorrectly byte-swap NOP when compiling for big-endian, and the resulting series of bytes happened to match the encoding of FNMADD S21, S30, S0, S0.
This went unnoticed until commit:
34f66c4c4d5518c1 (arm64: Use a positive cpucap for FP/SIMD)
Prior to that commit, the kernel would always enable the use of FPSIMD early in boot when __cpu_setup() initialized CPACR_EL1, and so usage of FNMADD within the kernel was not detected, but could result in the corruption of user or kernel FPSIMD state.
After that commit, the instructions happen to trap during boot prior to FPSIMD being detected and enabled, e.g.
| Unhandled 64-bit el1h sync exception on CPU0, ESR 0x000000001fe00000 -- ASIMD | CPU: 0 PID: 0 Comm: swapper Not tainted 6.6.0-rc3-00013-g34f66c4c4d55 #1 | Hardware name: linux,dummy-virt (DT) | pstate: 400000c9 (nZcv daIF -PAN -UAO -TCO -DIT -SSBS BTYPE=--) | pc : __pi_strcmp+0x1c/0x150 | lr : populate_properties+0xe4/0x254 | sp : ffffd014173d3ad0 | x29: ffffd014173d3af0 x28: fffffbfffddffcb8 x27: 0000000000000000 | x26: 0000000000000058 x25: fffffbfffddfe054 x24: 0000000000000008 | x23: fffffbfffddfe000 x22: fffffbfffddfe000 x21: fffffbfffddfe044 | x20: ffffd014173d3b70 x19: 0000000000000001 x18: 0000000000000005 | x17: 0000000000000010 x16: 0000000000000000 x15: 00000000413e7000 | x14: 0000000000000000 x13: 0000000000001bcc x12: 0000000000000000 | x11: 00000000d00dfeed x10: ffffd414193f2cd0 x9 : 0000000000000000 | x8 : 0101010101010101 x7 : ffffffffffffffc0 x6 : 0000000000000000 | x5 : 0000000000000000 x4 : 0101010101010101 x3 : 000000000000002a | x2 : 0000000000000001 x1 : ffffd014171f2988 x0 : fffffbfffddffcb8 | Kernel panic - not syncing: Unhandled exception | CPU: 0 PID: 0 Comm: swapper Not tainted 6.6.0-rc3-00013-g34f66c4c4d55 #1 | Hardware name: linux,dummy-virt (DT) | Call trace:
| dump_backtrace+0xec/0x108 | show_stack+0x18/0x2c | dump_stack_lvl+0x50/0x68 | dump_stack+0x18/0x24 | panic+0x13c/0x340 | el1t_64_irq_handler+0x0/0x1c | el1_abort+0x0/0x5c | el1h_64_sync+0x64/0x68 | __pi_strcmp+0x1c/0x150 | unflatten_dt_nodes+0x1e8/0x2d8 | __unflatten_device_tree+0x5c/0x15c | unflatten_device_tree+0x38/0x50 | setup_arch+0x164/0x1e0 | start_kernel+0x64/0x38c | __primary_switched+0xbc/0xc4
Restrict CONFIG_CPU_BIG_ENDIAN to a known good assembler, which is either GNU as or LLVM's IAS 15.0.0 and newer, which contains the linked commit.
Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Unity 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 affected kernel package.See Also
http://www.nessus.org/u?33d33e4b
Plugin Details
Severity: Medium
ID: 273059
File Name: unity_linux_UTSA-2025-989154.nasl
Version: 1.1
Type: local
Published: 11/5/2025
Updated: 11/5/2025
Supported Sensors: Nessus
Risk Information
VPR
Risk Factor: Medium
Score: 4.4
CVSS v2
Risk Factor: Medium
Base Score: 4.6
Temporal Score: 3.4
Vector: CVSS2#AV:L/AC:L/Au:S/C:N/I:N/A:C
CVSS Score Source: CVE-2023-52750
CVSS v3
Risk Factor: Medium
Base Score: 5.5
Temporal Score: 4.8
Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Temporal Vector: CVSS:3.0/E:U/RL:O/RC:C
Vulnerability Information
Required KB Items: Host/local_checks_enabled, Host/cpu, Host/UOS-Server/release, Host/UOS-Server/rpm-list
Exploit Ease: No known exploits are available
Patch Publication Date: 11/5/2025
Vulnerability Publication Date: 1/9/2024
Reference Information
CVE: CVE-2023-52750