Debian DLA-1989-1 : linux security update

medium Nessus Plugin ID 130918

Synopsis

The remote Debian host is missing a security update.

Description

Several vulnerabilities have been discovered in the Linux kernel that may lead to a privilege escalation, denial of service, or information leak.

CVE-2019-0154

Intel discovered that on their 8th and 9th generation GPUs, reading certain registers while the GPU is in a low-power state can cause a system hang. A local user permitted to use the GPU can use this for denial of service.

This update mitigates the issue through changes to the i915 driver.

The affected chips (gen8) are listed at <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_graphics_proces sing_units#Gen8>;.

CVE-2019-11135

It was discovered that on Intel CPUs supporting transactional memory (TSX), a transaction that is going to be aborted may continue to execute speculatively, reading sensitive data from internal buffers and leaking it through dependent operations. Intel calls this 'TSX Asynchronous Abort' (TAA).

For CPUs affected by the previously published Microarchitectural Data Sampling (MDS) issues (CVE-2018-12126, CVE-2018-12127, CVE-2018-12130, CVE-2019-11091), the existing mitigation also mitigates this issue.

For processors that are vulnerable to TAA but not MDS, this update disables TSX by default. This mitigation requires updated CPU microcode. An updated intel-microcode package (only available in Debian non-free) will be provided via a future DLA. The updated CPU microcode may also be available as part of a system firmware ('BIOS') update.

Further information on the mitigation can be found at <https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/admin-guide/hw-vuln/ tsx_async_abort.html> or in the linux-doc-3.16 package.

Intel's explanation of the issue can be found at <https://software.intel.com/security-software-guidance/insig hts/deep-dive-intel-transactional-synchronization-extensions
-intel-tsx-asynchronous-abort>;.

For Debian 8 'Jessie', these problems have been fixed in version 3.16.76-1. This update also includes other fixes from upstream stable updates.

We recommend that you upgrade your linux packages.

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

Solution

Upgrade the affected packages.

See Also

http://www.nessus.org/u?aac5629f

https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2019/11/msg00009.html

https://packages.debian.org/source/jessie/linux

http://www.nessus.org/u?900f812f

http://www.nessus.org/u?f68ddac1

Plugin Details

Severity: Medium

ID: 130918

File Name: debian_DLA-1989.nasl

Version: 1.7

Type: local

Agent: unix

Published: 11/13/2019

Updated: 1/11/2021

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

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 5.2

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Low

Base Score: 2.1

Temporal Score: 1.6

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

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2019-11135

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 6.5

Temporal Score: 5.7

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

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

Vulnerability Information

CPE: p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:linux-headers-3.16.0-9-586, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:linux-headers-3.16.0-9-686-pae, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:xen-linux-system-3.16.0-9-amd64, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:linux-image-3.16.0-9-armmp-lpae, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:linux-headers-3.16.0-9-armmp-lpae, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:linux-headers-3.16.0-9-all-i386, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:linux-headers-3.16.0-9-armmp, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:linux-image-3.16.0-9-versatile, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:linux-headers-3.16.0-9-all-armel, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:linux-image-3.16.0-9-orion5x, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:linux-support-3.16.0-9, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:linux-manual-3.16, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:linux-image-3.16.0-9-amd64-dbg, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:linux-headers-3.16.0-9-all-armhf, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:linux-image-3.16.0-9-amd64, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:linux-compiler-gcc-4.9-x86, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:linux-headers-3.16.0-9-kirkwood, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:linux-image-3.16.0-9-686-pae-dbg, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:linux-compiler-gcc-4.8-arm, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:linux-image-3.16.0-9-ixp4xx, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:linux-image-3.16.0-9-armmp, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:linux-headers-3.16.0-9-amd64, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:linux-doc-3.16, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:linux-libc-dev, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:linux-headers-3.16.0-9-versatile, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:linux-headers-3.16.0-9-all-amd64, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:linux-headers-3.16.0-9-all, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:linux-image-3.16.0-9-586, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:linux-headers-3.16.0-9-orion5x, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:linux-headers-3.16.0-9-ixp4xx, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:linux-image-3.16.0-9-kirkwood, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:linux-image-3.16.0-9-686-pae, cpe:/o:debian:debian_linux:8.0, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:linux-headers-3.16.0-9-common, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:linux-source-3.16, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:linux-compiler-gcc-4.8-x86

Required KB Items: Host/local_checks_enabled, Host/Debian/release, Host/Debian/dpkg-l

Exploit Ease: No known exploits are available

Patch Publication Date: 11/12/2019

Vulnerability Publication Date: 11/14/2019

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2019-0154, CVE-2019-11135