Updated kernel packages that fix several security issues in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 kernel are now available.

This security advisory has been rated as having important security impact by the Red Hat Security Response Team.

The Linux kernel handles the basic functions of the operating system.

The following security issues were fixed :

The Vicam USB driver did not use the copy_from_user function to access userspace, crossing security boundaries. (CVE-2004-0075)

The ext3 and jfs code did not properly initialize journal descriptor blocks. A privileged local user could read portions of kernel memory.
(CVE-2004-0177)

The terminal layer did not properly lock line discipline changes or pending IO. An unprivileged local user could read portions of kernel memory, or cause a denial of service (system crash). (CVE-2004-0814)

A race condition was discovered. Local users could use this flaw to read the environment variables of another process that is still spawning via /proc/.../cmdline. (CVE-2004-1058)

A flaw in the execve() syscall handling was discovered, allowing a local user to read setuid ELF binaries that should otherwise be protected by standard permissions. (CVE-2004-1073). Red Hat originally reported this as being fixed by RHSA-2004:549, but the associated fix was missing from that update.

Keith Owens reported a flaw in the Itanium unw_unwind_to_user() function. A local user could use this flaw to cause a denial of service (system crash) on the Itanium architecture. (CVE-2005-0135)

A missing Itanium syscall table entry could allow an unprivileged local user to cause a denial of service (system crash) on the Itanium architecture. (CVE-2005-0137)

A flaw affecting the OUTS instruction on the AMD64 and Intel EM64T architectures was discovered. A local user could use this flaw to access privileged IO ports. (CVE-2005-0204)

A flaw was discovered in the Linux PPP driver. On systems allowing remote users to connect to a server using ppp, a remote client could cause a denial of service (system crash). (CVE-2005-0384)

A flaw in the Red Hat backport of NPTL to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 was discovered that left a pointer to a freed tty structure. A local user could potentially use this flaw to cause a denial of service (system crash) or possibly gain read or write access to ttys that should normally be prevented. (CVE-2005-0403)

A flaw in fragment queuing was discovered affecting the netfilter subsystem. On systems configured to filter or process network packets (for example those configured to do firewalling), a remote attacker could send a carefully crafted set of fragmented packets to a machine and cause a denial of service (system crash). In order to sucessfully exploit this flaw, the attacker would need to know (or guess) some aspects of the firewall ruleset in place on the target system to be able to craft the right fragmented packets. (CVE-2005-0449)

Missing validation of an epoll_wait() system call parameter could allow a local user to cause a denial of service (system crash) on the IBM S/390 and zSeries architectures. (CVE-2005-0736)

A flaw when freeing a pointer in load_elf_library was discovered. A local user could potentially use this flaw to cause a denial of service (system crash). (CVE-2005-0749)

A flaw was discovered in the bluetooth driver system. On system where the bluetooth modules are loaded, a local user could use this flaw to gain elevated (root) privileges. (CVE-2005-0750)

In addition to the security issues listed above, there was an important fix made to the handling of the msync() system call for a particular case in which the call could return without queuing modified mmap()'ed data for file system update. (BZ 147969)

Note: The kernel-unsupported package contains various drivers and modules that are unsupported and therefore might contain security problems that have not been addressed.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 users are advised to upgrade their kernels to the packages associated with their machine architectures/configurations

Please note that the fix for CVE-2005-0449 required changing the external symbol linkages (kernel module ABI) for the ip_defrag() and ip_ct_gather_frags() functions. Any third-party module using either of these would also need to be fixed.

The remote host is missing the patch for the advisory SuSE-SA:2004:005 (Linux Kernel).


Another bug in the Kernel's do_mremap() function, which is unrelated to the bug fixed in SuSE-SA:2004:001, was found by Paul Starzetz.
The do_mremap() function of the Linux Kernel is used to manage Virtual Memory Areas (VMAs) which includes moving, removing and resizing of memory areas.  To remove old memory areas do_mremap() uses the function du_munmap() without checking the return value.
By forcing do_munmap() to return an error the memory management of a process can be tricked into moving page table entries from one VMA to another. The destination VMA may be protected by a different ACL which enables a local attacker to gain write access to previous read-only pages.
The result will be local root access to the system.

Additionally to the bug mentioned above some other bugs were fixed (depending on architecture) that can cause local denial-of-service conditions:
- Vicam USB driver: CVE-2004-0075 + denial-of-service due to problem while copying data from user to kernel space
- Direct Render Infrastructure: CVE-2004-0003 + denial-of-service due to integer overflow + needs r128 card and console to be exploited
- ncpfs/ncp_lookup: CVE-2004-0010 + buffer overflow with the probability to gain root
- execve():
+ malformed elf binaries can lead to a local denial-of-service attack

Paul Staretz discovered a flaw in return value checking in the mremap() function in the Linux kernel, versions 2.4.24 and previous that could allow a local user to obtain root privileges.

A vulnerability was found in the R128 DRI driver by Alan Cox. This could allow local privilege escalation.

A flaw in the ncp_lookup() function in the ncpfs code (which is used to mount NetWare volumes or print to NetWare printers) was found by Arjen van de Ven that could allow local privilege escalation.

The Vicam USB driver in Linux kernel versions prior to 2.4.25 does not use the copy_from_user function to access userspace, which crosses security boundaries. This problem does not affect the Mandrake Linux 9.2 kernel.

Additionally, a ptrace hole that only affects the amd64/x86_64 platform has been corrected.

The provided packages are patched to fix these vulnerabilities. All users are encouraged to upgrade to these updated kernels.

To update your kernel, please follow the directions located at :

http://www.mandrakesecure.net/en/kernelupdate.php

ID	Name	Product	Family	Published	Updated	Severity
21923	CentOS 3 : kernel (CESA-2005:293)	Nessus	CentOS Local Security Checks	7/5/2006	1/4/2021	high
18128	RHEL 3 : kernel (RHSA-2005:293)	Nessus	Red Hat Local Security Checks	4/25/2005	1/14/2021	high
13823	SuSE-SA:2004:005: Linux Kernel	Nessus	SuSE Local Security Checks	7/25/2004	1/14/2021	high
14115	Mandrake Linux Security Advisory : kernel (MDKSA-2004:015)	Nessus	Mandriva Local Security Checks	7/31/2004	1/6/2021	high

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