RHEL 6 : kernel (RHSA-2018:2924)

high Nessus Plugin ID 118163

Synopsis

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

Description

The remote Redhat Enterprise Linux 6 host has packages installed that are affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the RHSA-2018:2924 advisory.

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

Security Fix(es):

* A flaw named SegmentSmack was found in the way the Linux kernel handled specially crafted TCP packets. A remote attacker could use this flaw to trigger time and calculation expensive calls to tcp_collapse_ofo_queue() and tcp_prune_ofo_queue() functions by sending specially modified packets within ongoing TCP sessions which could lead to a CPU saturation and hence a denial of service on the system.
Maintaining the denial of service condition requires continuous two-way TCP sessions to a reachable open port, thus the attacks cannot be performed using spoofed IP addresses. (CVE-2018-5390)

* A flaw named FragmentSmack was found in the way the Linux kernel handled reassembly of fragmented IPv4 and IPv6 packets. A remote attacker could use this flaw to trigger time and calculation expensive fragment reassembly algorithm by sending specially crafted packets which could lead to a CPU saturation and hence a denial of service on the system. (CVE-2018-5391)

* kernel: mm: use-after-free in do_get_mempolicy function allows local DoS or other unspecified impact (CVE-2018-10675)

* kernel: Integer overflow in Linux's create_elf_tables function (CVE-2018-14634)

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

Red Hat would like to thank Juha-Matti Tilli (Aalto University - Department of Communications and Networking and Nokia Bell Labs) for reporting CVE-2018-5390 and CVE-2018-5391 and Qualys Research Labs for reporting CVE-2018-14634.

Bug Fix(es):

* After updating the system to prevent the L1 Terminal Fault (L1TF) vulnerability, only one thread was detected on systems that offer processing of two threads on a single processor core. With this update, the
__max_smt_threads() function has been fixed. As a result, both threads are now detected correctly in the described situation. (BZ#1625334)

* Previously, a kernel panic occurred when the kernel tried to make an out of bound access to the array that describes the L1 Terminal Fault (L1TF) mitigation state on systems without Extended Page Tables (EPT) support. This update extends the array of mitigation states to cover all the states, which effectively prevents out of bound array access. Also, this update enables rejecting invalid, irrelevant values, that might be erroneously provided by the userspace. As a result, the kernel no longer panics in the described scenario. (BZ#1629633)

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-2018:2924.

See Also

http://www.nessus.org/u?143db380

https://access.redhat.com/articles/3553061

https://access.redhat.com/security/vulnerabilities/mutagen-astronomy

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1575065

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1601704

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1609664

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1624498

https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2018:2924

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

Plugin Details

Severity: High

ID: 118163

File Name: redhat-RHSA-2018-2924.nasl

Version: 1.12

Type: local

Agent: unix

Published: 10/17/2018

Updated: 11/5/2024

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

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: High

Score: 7.4

Vendor

Vendor Severity: Important

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 7.2

Temporal Score: 5.6

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

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2018-14634

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 7.8

Temporal Score: 7

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

Temporal Vector: CVSS:3.0/E:P/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:rhel_tus:6.6, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:kernel-debug-devel, cpe:/o:redhat:rhel_aus:6.6, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:python-perf, 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: 10/16/2018

Vulnerability Publication Date: 5/2/2018

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2018-10675, CVE-2018-14634, CVE-2018-5390, CVE-2018-5391

CWE: 190, 400, 416

RHSA: 2018:2924