Detections
Analytics
MiracleLinux 4 : kernel-2.6.32-696.18.7.el6 (AXSA:2018-2508:01)
medium Nessus Plugin ID 290103
Synopsis
The remote MiracleLinux host is missing one or more security updates.Description
The remote MiracleLinux 4 host has packages installed that are affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the AXSA:2018-2508:01 advisory.An industry-wide issue was found in the way many modern microprocessor designs have implemented speculative execution of instructions (a commonly used performance optimization). There are three primary variants of the issue which differ in the way the speculative execution can be exploited.
Note: This issue is present in hardware and cannot be fully fixed via software update. The updated kernel packages provide software mitigation for this hardware issue at a cost of potential performance penalty.
Please refer to References section for further information about this issue and the performance impact.
In this update mitigations for x86-64 architecture are provided.
Variant CVE-2017-5753 triggers the speculative execution by performing a bounds-check bypass. It relies on the presence of a precisely-defined instruction sequence in the privileged code as well as the fact that memory accesses may cause allocation into the microprocessor's data cache even for speculatively executed instructions that never actually commit (retire). As a result, an unprivileged attacker could use this flaw to cross the syscall boundary and read privileged memory by conducting targeted cache side-channel attacks. (CVE-2017-5753, Important) Variant CVE-2017-5715 triggers the speculative execution by utilizing branch target injection. It relies on the presence of a precisely-defined instruction sequence in the privileged code as well as the fact that memory accesses may cause allocation into the microprocessor's data cache even for speculatively executed instructions that never actually commit (retire). As a result, an unprivileged attacker could use this flaw to cross the syscall and guest/host boundaries and read privileged memory by conducting targeted cache side-channel attacks. (CVE-2017-5715, Important) Variant CVE-2017-5754 relies on the fact that, on impacted microprocessors, during speculative execution of instruction permission faults, exception generation triggered by a faulting access is suppressed until the retirement of the whole instruction block. In a combination with the fact that memory accesses may populate the cache even when the block is being dropped and never committed (executed), an unprivileged local attacker could use this flaw to read privileged (kernel space) memory by conducting targeted cache side-channel attacks. (CVE-2017-5754, Important) Note: CVE-2017-5754 affects Intel x86-64 microprocessors. AMD x86-64 microprocessors are not affected by this issue.
Asianux would like to thank Google Project Zero for reporting these issues.
CVE-2017-5715 Systems with microprocessors utilizing speculative execution and indirect branch prediction may allow unauthorized disclosure of information to an attacker with local user access via a side-channel analysis.
CVE-2017-5753 Systems with microprocessors utilizing speculative execution and branch prediction may allow unauthorized disclosure of information to an attacker with local user access via a side-channel analysis.
CVE-2017-5754 Systems with microprocessors utilizing speculative execution and indirect branch prediction may allow unauthorized disclosure of information to an attacker with local user access via a side-channel analysis of the data cache.
Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the MiracleLinux security advisory.
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 packages.See Also
Plugin Details
Severity: Medium
ID: 290103
File Name: miracle_linux_AXSA-2018-2508.nasl
Version: 1.1
Type: local
Published: 1/16/2026
Updated: 1/16/2026
Supported Sensors: Nessus Agent, Nessus
Risk Information
VPR
Risk Factor: High
Score: 7.9
Vendor
Vendor Severity: High
CVSS v2
Risk Factor: Medium
Base Score: 4.7
Temporal Score: 4.1
Vector: CVSS2#AV:L/AC:M/Au:N/C:C/I:N/A:N
CVSS Score Source: CVE-2017-5754
CVSS v3
Risk Factor: Medium
Base Score: 5.6
Temporal Score: 5.4
Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N
Temporal Vector: CVSS:3.0/E:H/RL:O/RC:C
Vulnerability Information
CPE: p-cpe:/a:miracle:linux:kernel-debug, p-cpe:/a:miracle:linux:kernel-debug-devel, p-cpe:/a:miracle:linux:perf, cpe:/o:miracle:linux:4, p-cpe:/a:miracle:linux:kernel-headers, p-cpe:/a:miracle:linux:kernel-firmware, p-cpe:/a:miracle:linux:kernel, p-cpe:/a:miracle:linux:kernel-devel, p-cpe:/a:miracle:linux:kernel-abi-whitelists
Required KB Items: Host/local_checks_enabled, Host/MiracleLinux/release, Host/MiracleLinux/rpm-list, Host/cpu
Exploit Available: true
Exploit Ease: Exploits are available
Patch Publication Date: 1/10/2018
Vulnerability Publication Date: 1/3/2018
Exploitable With
CANVAS (CANVAS)
Reference Information
CVE: CVE-2017-5715, CVE-2017-5753, CVE-2017-5754
IAVA: 2018-A-0017-S, 2018-A-0019, 2018-A-0020, 2018-A-0022-S