Synopsis
The remote Red Hat host is missing one or more security updates for kernel-rt.
Description
The remote Redhat Enterprise Linux 7 host has packages installed that are affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the RHSA-2019:1176 advisory.
The kernel-rt packages provide the Real Time Linux Kernel, which enables fine-tuning for systems with extremely high determinism requirements.
Security Fix(es):
* A flaw was found in the implementation of the fill buffer, a mechanism used by modern CPUs when a cache-miss is made on L1 CPU cache. If an attacker can generate a load operation that would create a page fault, the execution will continue speculatively with incorrect data from the fill buffer while the data is fetched from higher level caches. This response time can be measured to infer data in the fill buffer.
(CVE-2018-12130)
* Modern Intel microprocessors implement hardware-level micro-optimizations to improve the performance of writing data back to CPU caches. The write operation is split into STA (STore Address) and STD (STore Data) sub-operations. These sub-operations allow the processor to hand-off address generation logic into these sub-operations for optimized writes. Both of these sub-operations write to a shared distributed processor structure called the 'processor store buffer'. As a result, an unprivileged attacker could use this flaw to read private data resident within the CPU's processor store buffer. (CVE-2018-12126)
* Microprocessors use a load port subcomponent to perform load operations from memory or IO. During a load operation, the load port receives data from the memory or IO subsystem and then provides the data to the CPU registers and operations in the CPUs pipelines. Stale load operations results are stored in the 'load port' table until overwritten by newer operations. Certain load-port operations triggered by an attacker can be used to reveal data about previous stale requests leaking data back to the attacker via a timing side-channel. (CVE-2018-12127)
* Uncacheable memory on some microprocessors utilizing speculative execution may allow an authenticated user to potentially enable information disclosure via a side channel with local access. (CVE-2019-11091)
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.
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-rt package based on the guidance in RHSA-2019:1176.
Plugin Details
File Name: redhat-RHSA-2019-1176.nasl
Agent: unix
Supported Sensors: Agentless Assessment, Continuous Assessment, Frictionless Assessment Agent, Frictionless Assessment AWS, Frictionless Assessment Azure, Nessus Agent, Nessus
Risk Information
Vendor
Vendor Severity: Important
Vector: CVSS2#AV:L/AC:M/Au:N/C:C/I:N/A:N
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:P/RL:O/RC:C
Vulnerability Information
CPE: p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:kernel-rt, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:kernel-rt-debug-devel, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:kernel-rt-doc, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:kernel-rt-devel, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:kernel-rt-kvm, cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:7, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:kernel-rt-trace-kvm, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:kernel-rt-trace-devel, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:kernel-rt-trace, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:kernel-rt-debug, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:kernel-rt-debug-kvm
Required KB Items: Host/local_checks_enabled, Host/RedHat/release, Host/RedHat/rpm-list, Host/cpu
Exploit Ease: Exploits are available
Patch Publication Date: 5/14/2019
Vulnerability Publication Date: 5/30/2019