Updated kernel packages that fix several security issues and a page attribute mapping bug are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.

This update 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.

An issue was discovered that affects how page attributes are changed by the kernel. Video drivers, which sometimes map kernel pages with a different caching policy than write-back, are now expected to function correctly. This change affects the x86, AMD64, and Intel EM64T architectures.

In addition the following security bugs were fixed :

The set_mempolicy system call did not check for negative numbers in the policy field. An unprivileged local user could use this flaw to cause a denial of service (system panic). (CVE-2005-3053)

A flaw in ioremap handling on AMD 64 and Intel EM64T systems. An unprivileged local user could use this flaw to cause a denial of service or minor information leak. (CVE-2005-3108)

A race condition in the ebtables netfilter module. On a SMP system that is operating under a heavy load this flaw may allow remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash). (CVE-2005-3110)

A memory leak was found in key handling. An unprivileged local user could use this flaw to cause a denial of service. (CVE-2005-3119)

A flaw in the Orinoco wireless driver. On systems running the vulnerable drive, a remote attacker could send carefully crafted packets which would divulge the contents of uninitialized kernel memory. (CVE-2005-3180)

A memory leak was found in the audit system. An unprivileged local user could use this flaw to cause a denial of service. (CVE-2005-3181)

All Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 users are advised to upgrade their kernels to the packages associated with their machine architectures and configurations as listed in this erratum.

A Denial of Service vulnerability was discovered in the sys_set_mempolicy() function. By calling the function with a negative first argument, a local attacker could cause a kernel crash.
(CAN-2005-3053)

A race condition was discovered in the handling of shared memory mappings with CLONE_VM. A local attacker could exploit this to cause a deadlock (Denial of Service) by triggering a core dump while waiting for a thread which had just performed an exec() system call.
(CAN-2005-3106)

A race condition was found in the handling of traced processes. When one thread was tracing another thread that shared the same memory map, a local attacker could trigger a deadlock (Denial of Service) by forcing a core dump when the traced thread was in the TASK_TRACED state. (CAN-2005-3107)

A vulnerability has been found in the 'ioremap' module. By performing certain IO mapping operations, a local attacker could either read memory pages he has not normally access to (information leak) or cause a kernel crash (Denial of Service). This only affects the amd64 platform. (CAN-2005-3108)

The HFS and HFS+ file system drivers did not properly verify that the file system that was attempted to be mounted really was HFS/HFS+. On machines which allow users to mount arbitrary removable devices as HFS or HFS+ with an /etc/fstab entry, this could be exploited to trigger a kernel crash. (CAN-2005-3109)

Steve Herrel discovered a race condition in the 'ebtables' netfilter module. A remote attacker could exploit this by sending specially crafted packets that caused a value to be modified after it had been read but before it had been locked. This eventually lead to a kernel crash. This only affects multiprocessor machines (SMP).
(CAN-2005-3110)

Robert Derr discovered a memory leak in the system call auditing code.
On a kernel which has the CONFIG_AUDITSYSCALL option enabled, this leads to memory exhaustion and eventually a Denial of Service. A local attacker could also speed this up by excessively calling system calls.
This only affects customized kernels built from the kernel source packages. The standard Ubuntu kernel does not have the CONFIG_AUDITSYSCALL option enabled, and is therefore not affected by this.
(http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=co mmitdiff;h=829841146878e082613a49581ae252c071057c23).

Note that Tenable Network Security has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Ubuntu security advisory. Tenable has attempted to automatically clean and format it as much as possible without introducing additional issues.

Several local and remote vulnerabilities have been discovered in the Linux kernel that may lead to a denial of service or the execution of arbitrary code. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project identifies the following problems :

  - CVE-2004-2302     A race condition in the sysfs filesystem allows local     users to read kernel memory and cause a denial of     service (crash).

  - CVE-2005-0756     Alexander Nyberg discovered that the ptrace() system     call does not properly verify addresses on the amd64     architecture which can be exploited by a local attacker     to crash the kernel.

  - CVE-2005-0757     A problem in the offset handling in the xattr file     system code for ext3 has been discovered that may allow     users on 64-bit systems that have access to an ext3     filesystem with extended attributes to cause the kernel     to crash.

  - CVE-2005-1265     Chris Wright discovered that the mmap() function could     create illegal memory maps that could be exploited by a     local user to crash the kernel or potentially execute     arbitrary code.

  - CVE-2005-1761     A vulnerability on the IA-64 architecture can lead local     attackers to overwrite kernel memory and crash the     kernel.

  - CVE-2005-1762     A vulnerability has been discovered in the ptrace()     system call on the amd64 architecture that allows a     local attacker to cause the kernel to crash.

  - CVE-2005-1763     A buffer overflow in the ptrace system call for 64-bit     architectures allows local users to write bytes into     arbitrary kernel memory.

  - CVE-2005-1765     Zou Nan Hai has discovered that a local user could cause     the kernel to hang on the amd64 architecture after     invoking syscall() with specially crafted arguments.

  - CVE-2005-1767     A vulnerability has been discovered in the stack segment     fault handler that could allow a local attacker to cause     a stack exception that will lead the kernel to crash     under certain circumstances.

  - CVE-2005-2456     Balazs Scheidler discovered that a local attacker could     call setsockopt() with an invalid xfrm_user policy     message which would cause the kernel to write beyond the     boundaries of an array and crash.

  - CVE-2005-2458     Vladimir Volovich discovered a bug in the zlib routines     which are also present in the Linux kernel and allows     remote attackers to crash the kernel.

  - CVE-2005-2459     Another vulnerability has been discovered in the zlib     routines which are also present in the Linux kernel and     allows remote attackers to crash the kernel.

  - CVE-2005-2548     Peter Sandstrom noticed that snmpwalk from a remote host     could cause a denial of service (kernel oops from null     dereference) via certain UDP packets that lead to a     function call with the wrong argument.

  - CVE-2005-2801     Andreas Gruenbacher discovered a bug in the ext2 and     ext3 file systems. When data areas are to be shared     among two inodes not all information were compared for     equality, which could expose wrong ACLs for files.

  - CVE-2005-2872     Chad Walstrom discovered that the ipt_recent kernel     module on 64-bit processors such as AMD64 allows remote     attackers to cause a denial of service (kernel panic)     via certain attacks such as SSH brute force.

  - CVE-2005-3105     The mprotect code on Itanium IA-64 Montecito processors     does not properly maintain cache coherency as required     by the architecture, which allows local users to cause a     denial of service and possibly corrupt data by modifying     PTE protections.

  - CVE-2005-3106     A race condition in the thread management may allow     local users to cause a denial of service (deadlock) when     threads are sharing memory and waiting for a thread that     has just performed an exec.

  - CVE-2005-3107     When one thread is tracing another thread that shares     the same memory map a local user could cause a denial of     service (deadlock) by forcing a core dump when the     traced thread is in the TASK_TRACED state.

  - CVE-2005-3108     A bug in the ioremap() system call has been discovered     on the amd64 architecture that could allow local users     to cause a denial of service or an information leak when     performing a lookup of a non-existent memory page.

  - CVE-2005-3109     The HFS and HFS+ (hfsplus) modules allow local attackers     to cause a denial of service (oops) by using hfsplus to     mount a filesystem that is not hfsplus.

  - CVE-2005-3110     A race condition in the ebtables netfilter module on an     SMP system running under high load may allow remote     attackers to cause a denial of service (crash).

  - CVE-2005-3271     Roland McGrath discovered that exec() does not properly     clear posix-timers in multi-threaded environments, which     results in a resource leak and could allow a large     number of multiple local users to cause a denial of     service by using more posix-timers than specified by the     quota for a single user.

  - CVE-2005-3272     The kernel allows remote attackers to poison the bridge     forwarding table using frames that have already been     dropped by filtering, which can cause the bridge to     forward spoofed packets.

  - CVE-2005-3273     The ioctl for the packet radio ROSE protocol does not     properly verify the arguments when setting a new router,     which allows attackers to trigger out-of-bounds errors.

  - CVE-2005-3274     A race condition on SMP systems allows local users to     cause a denial of service (null dereference) by causing     a connection timer to expire while the connection table     is being flushed before the appropriate lock is     acquired.

  - CVE-2005-3275     An error in the NAT code allows remote attackers to     cause a denial of service (memory corruption) by causing     two packets for the same protocol to be NATed at the     same time, which leads to memory corruption.

  - CVE-2005-3276     A missing memory cleanup in the thread handling routines     before copying data into userspace allows a user process     to obtain sensitive information.

This update also contains a number of corrections for issues that turned out to have no security implication afterwards.

The remote CentOS system is missing a security update which has been documented in Red Hat advisory RHSA-2005-808.

ID	Name	Product	Family	Published	Updated	Severity
21967	CentOS 4 : kernel (CESA-2005:808)	Nessus	CentOS Local Security Checks	7/5/2006	1/4/2021	medium
20104	RHEL 4 : kernel (RHSA-2005:808)	Nessus	Red Hat Local Security Checks	10/28/2005	1/14/2021	medium
20613	Ubuntu 4.10 / 5.04 : linux-source-2.6.10, linux-source-2.6.8.1 vulnerabilities (USN-199-1)	Nessus	Ubuntu Local Security Checks	1/15/2006	1/19/2021	low
22788	Debian DSA-922-1 : kernel-source-2.6.8 - several vulnerabilities	Nessus	Debian Local Security Checks	10/14/2006	1/4/2021	high
801412	CentOS RHSA-2005-808 Security Check	Log Correlation Engine	Generic			high

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