RHEL 6 : kernel (RHSA-2018:0512)

medium Nessus Plugin ID 108329

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Synopsis

The remote Red Hat host is missing a security update for kernel.

Description

The remote Redhat Enterprise Linux 6 host has packages installed that are affected by a vulnerability as referenced in the RHSA-2018:0512 advisory.

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

Security Fix(es):

* hw: cpu: speculative execution branch target injection (s390-only) (CVE-2017-5715, Important)

* hw: cpu: speculative execution bounds-check bypass (s390 and powerpc) (CVE-2017-5753, Important)

* hw: cpu: speculative execution permission faults handling (powerpc-only) (CVE-2017-5754)

For more details about the security issue(s), including the impact, a CVSS score, acknowledgments, and other related information, refer to the CVE page(s) listed in the References section.

Bug Fixes:

* If a fibre channel (FC) switch was powered down and then powered on again, the SCSI device driver stopped permanently the SCSI device's request queue. Consequently, the FC port login failed, leaving the port state as Bypassed instead of Online, and users had to reboot the operating system. This update fixes the driver to avoid the permanent stop of the request queue. As a result, SCSI device now continues working as expected after power cycling the FC switch. (BZ#1519857)

* Previously, on final close or unlink of a file, the find_get_pages() function in the memory management sometimes found no pages even if there were some pages left to save. Consequently, a kernel crash occurred when attempting to enter the unlink() function. This update fixes the find_get_pages() function in the memory management code to not return 0 too early. As a result, the kernel no longer crashes due to this behavior.(BZ#1527811)

* Using IPsec connections under a heavy load could previously lead to a network performance degradation, especially when using the aesni-intel module. This update fixes the issue by making the cryptd queue length configurable so that it can be increased to prevent an overflow and packet drop. As a result, using IPsec under a heavy load no longer reduces network performance. (BZ#1527802)

* Previously, a deadlock in the bnx2fc driver caused all adapters to block and the SCSI error handler to become unresponsive. As a result, data transferring through the adapter was sometimes blocked. This update fixes bnx2fc, and data transferring through the adapter is no longer blocked due to this behavior.
(BZ#1523783)

* If an NFSv3 client mounted a subdirectory of an exported file system, a directory entry to the mount hosting the export was incorrectly held even after clearing the cache. Consequently, attempts to unmount the subdirectory with the umount command failed with the EBUSY error. With this update, the underlying source code has been fixed, and the unmount operation now succeeds as expected in the described situation.
(BZ#1535938)

Users of kernel are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which fix these bugs. The system must be rebooted for this update to take effect.

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Red Hat Enterprise 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 RHEL kernel package based on the guidance in RHSA-2018:0512.

Plugin Details

Severity: Medium

ID: 108329

File Name: redhat-RHSA-2018-0512.nasl

Version: 1.12

Type: local

Agent: unix

Family: Red Hat Local Security Checks

Published: 3/14/2018

Updated: 11/5/2024

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

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: High

Score: 8.4

Vendor

Vendor Severity: Important

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-2017-5753

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:redhat:enterprise_linux:kernel, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:kernel-headers, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:kernel-firmware, cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:6, 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: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 Available: true

Exploit Ease: Exploits are available

Patch Publication Date: 3/13/2018

Vulnerability Publication Date: 1/4/2018

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2017-5753

CWE: 200

RHSA: 2018:0512

Detections

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