RHEL 7 : kernel (RHSA-2017:1615)

critical Nessus Plugin ID 101101

Synopsis

The remote Red Hat host is missing one or more security updates for kernel.

Description

The remote Redhat Enterprise Linux 7 host has packages installed that are affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the RHSA-2017:1615 advisory.

The kernel packages contain the Linux kernel, the core of any Linux operating system.

Security Fix(es):

* A flaw was found in the way Linux kernel allocates heap memory to build the scattergather list from a fragment list(skb_shinfo(skb)->frag_list) in the socket buffer(skb_buff). The heap overflow occurred if 'MAX_SKB_FRAGS + 1' parameter and 'NETIF_F_FRAGLIST' feature were used together. A remote user or process could use this flaw to potentially escalate their privilege on a system.
(CVE-2017-7477, Important)

* The NFS2/3 RPC client could send long arguments to the NFS server. These encoded arguments are stored in an array of memory pages, and accessed using pointer variables. Arbitrarily long arguments could make these pointers point outside the array and cause an out-of-bounds memory access. A remote user or program could use this flaw to crash the kernel (denial of service). (CVE-2017-7645, Important)

* The NFSv2 and NFSv3 server implementations in the Linux kernel through 4.10.13 lacked certain checks for the end of a buffer. A remote attacker could trigger a pointer-arithmetic error or possibly cause other unspecified impacts using crafted requests related to fs/nfsd/nfs3xdr.c and fs/nfsd/nfsxdr.c.
(CVE-2017-7895, Important)

* The Linux kernel built with the Kernel-based Virtual Machine (CONFIG_KVM) support was vulnerable to an incorrect segment selector(SS) value error. The error could occur while loading values into the SS register in long mode. A user or process inside a guest could use this flaw to crash the guest, resulting in DoS or potentially escalate their privileges inside the guest. (CVE-2017-2583, Moderate)

* A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's handling of packets with the URG flag. Applications using the splice() and tcp_splice_read() functionality could allow a remote attacker to force the kernel to enter a condition in which it could loop indefinitely. (CVE-2017-6214, Moderate)

Red Hat would like to thank Ari Kauppi for reporting CVE-2017-7895 and Xiaohan Zhang (Huawei Inc.) for reporting CVE-2017-2583.

Bug Fix(es):

* Previously, the reserved-pages counter (HugePages_Rsvd) was bigger than the total-pages counter (HugePages_Total) in the /proc/meminfo file, and HugePages_Rsvd underflowed. With this update, the HugeTLB feature of the Linux kernel has been fixed, and HugePages_Rsvd underflow no longer occurs. (BZ#1445184)

* If a directory on a NFS client was modified while being listed, the NFS client could restart the directory listing multiple times. Consequently, the performance of listing the directory was sub-optimal.
With this update, the restarting of the directory listing happens less frequently. As a result, the performance of listing the directory while it is being modified has improved. (BZ#1450851)

* The Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) adapter in some cases failed to reboot. This update fixes the qla2xxx driver, and FCoE adapter now reboots as expected. (BZ#1446246)

* When a VM with Virtual Function I/O (VFIO) device was rebooted, the QEMU process occasionally terminated unexpectedly due to a failed VFIO Direct Memory Access (DMA) map request. This update fixes the vfio driver and QEMU no longer crashes in the described situation. (BZ#1450855)

* When the operating system was booted with the in-box lpfc driver, a kernel panic occurred on the little- endian variant of IBM Power Systems. This update fixes lpfc, and the kernel no longer panics in the described situation. (BZ#1452044)

* When creating or destroying a VM with Virtual Function I/O (VFIO) devices with Hugepages feature enabled, errors in Direct Memory Access (DMA) page table entry (PTE) mappings occurred, and QEMU memory usage behaved unpredictably. This update fixes range computation when making room for large pages in Input/Output Memory Management Unit (IOMMU). As a result, errors in DMA PTE mappings no longer occur, and QEMU has a predictable memory usage in the described situation. (BZ#1450856)

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 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 RHEL kernel package based on the guidance in RHSA-2017:1615.

See Also

http://www.nessus.org/u?a63b810d

https://access.redhat.com/articles/3090941

https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2017:1615

https://access.redhat.com/security/updates/classification/#important

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1414735

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1426542

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1443615

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1445207

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1446103

Plugin Details

Severity: Critical

ID: 101101

File Name: redhat-RHSA-2017-1615.nasl

Version: 3.15

Type: local

Agent: unix

Published: 6/29/2017

Updated: 11/4/2024

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

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 6.7

Vendor

Vendor Severity: Important

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Critical

Base Score: 10

Temporal Score: 7.4

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

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2017-7895

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: Critical

Base Score: 9.8

Temporal Score: 8.5

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

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

Vulnerability Information

CPE: p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:kernel-tools, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:kernel, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:kernel-headers, cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:7, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:kernel-tools-libs-devel, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:kernel-debug-devel, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:kernel-kdump, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:kernel-bootwrapper, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:kernel-tools-libs, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:python-perf, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:kernel-kdump-devel, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:kernel-devel, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:kernel-debug, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:perf

Required KB Items: Host/local_checks_enabled, Host/RedHat/release, Host/RedHat/rpm-list, Host/cpu

Exploit Ease: No known exploits are available

Patch Publication Date: 6/28/2017

Vulnerability Publication Date: 2/6/2017

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2017-2583, CVE-2017-6214, CVE-2017-7477, CVE-2017-7645, CVE-2017-7895

CWE: 122, 125, 130, 250, 835

RHSA: 2017:1615