CentOS 5 : kvm (CESA-2010:0088)

high Nessus Plugin ID 44427

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Synopsis

The remote CentOS host is missing one or more security updates.

Description

Updated kvm packages that fix multiple security issues and several bugs are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.

This update has been rated as having important security impact by the Red Hat Security Response Team.

KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) is a full virtualization solution for Linux on AMD64 and Intel 64 systems. KVM is a Linux kernel module built for the standard Red Hat Enterprise Linux kernel.

The x86 emulator implementation was missing a check for the Current Privilege Level (CPL) and I/O Privilege Level (IOPL). A user in a guest could leverage these flaws to cause a denial of service (guest crash) or possibly escalate their privileges within that guest.
(CVE-2010-0298, CVE-2010-0306)

A flaw was found in the Programmable Interval Timer (PIT) emulation.
Access to the internal data structure pit_state, which represents the data state of the emulated PIT, was not properly validated in the pit_ioport_read() function. A privileged guest user could use this flaw to crash the host. (CVE-2010-0309)

A flaw was found in the USB passthrough handling code. A specially crafted USB packet sent from inside a guest could be used to trigger a buffer overflow in the usb_host_handle_control() function, which runs under the QEMU-KVM context on the host. A user in a guest could leverage this flaw to cause a denial of service (guest hang or crash) or possibly escalate their privileges within the host. (CVE-2010-0297)

This update also fixes the following bugs :

* pvclock MSR values were not preserved during remote migration, causing time drift for guests. (BZ#537028)

* SMBIOS table 4 data is now generated for Windows guests. (BZ#545874)

* if the qemu-kvm '-net user' option was used, unattended Windows XP installations did not receive an IP address after reboot. (BZ#546562)

* when being restored from migration, a race condition caused Windows Server 2008 R2 guests to hang during shutdown. (BZ#546563)

* the kernel symbol checking on the kvm-kmod build process has a safety check for ABI changes. (BZ#547293)

* on hosts without high-res timers, Windows Server 2003 guests experienced significant time drift. (BZ#547625)

* in some situations, installing Windows Server 2008 R2 from an ISO image resulted in a blue screen 'BAD_POOL_HEADER' stop error.
(BZ#548368)

* a bug in the grow_refcount_table() error handling caused infinite recursion in some cases. This caused the qemu-kvm process to hang and eventually crash. (BZ#552159)

* for Windows Server 2003 R2, Service Pack 2, 32-bit guests, an 'unhandled vm exit' error could occur during reboot on some systems.
(BZ#552518)

* for Windows guests, QEMU could attempt to stop a stopped audio device, resulting in a 'snd_playback_stop: ASSERT playback_channel->base.active failed' error. (BZ#552519)

* the Hypercall driver did not reset the device on power-down.
(BZ#552528)

* mechanisms have been added to make older savevm versions to be emitted in some cases. (BZ#552529)

* an error in the Makefile prevented users from using the source RPM to install KVM. (BZ#552530)

* guests became unresponsive and could use up to 100% CPU when running certain benchmark tests with more than 7 guests running simultaneously. (BZ#553249)

* QEMU could terminate randomly with virtio-net and SMP enabled.
(BZ#561022)

All KVM users should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backported patches to resolve these issues. Note: The procedure in the Solution section must be performed before this update will take effect.

Solution

Update the affected kvm packages.

See Also

http://www.nessus.org/u?73c1b030

Plugin Details

Severity: High

ID: 44427

File Name: centos_RHSA-2010-0088.nasl

Version: 1.23

Type: local

Agent: unix

Published: 2/10/2010

Updated: 1/4/2021

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

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: High

Score: 7.3

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 7.2

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

Vulnerability Information

CPE: p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kmod-kvm, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kvm-tools, cpe:/o:centos:centos:5, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kvm-qemu-img, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:kvm

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

Patch Publication Date: 2/9/2010

Vulnerability Publication Date: 2/12/2010

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2010-0297, CVE-2010-0298, CVE-2010-0306, CVE-2010-0309

CWE: 119, 16, 264

RHSA: 2010:0088