RHEL 6 : kernel (RHSA-2012:0571)

medium Nessus Plugin ID 59106

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-2012:0571 advisory.

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

This update fixes the following security issues:

* A flaw was found in the way the Linux kernel's journal_unmap_buffer() function handled buffer head states. On systems that have an ext4 file system with a journal mounted, a local, unprivileged user could use this flaw to cause a denial of service. (CVE-2011-4086, Moderate)

* A flaw was found in the way the KVM_CREATE_IRQCHIP ioctl was handled.
Calling this ioctl when at least one virtual CPU (VCPU) already existed could lead to a NULL pointer dereference later when the VCPU is scheduled to run. A local, unprivileged user on a KVM host could use this flaw to crash the host. (CVE-2012-1601, Moderate)

This update also fixes several bugs. Documentation for these changes will be available shortly from the Technical Notes document linked to in the References section.

Users should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backported patches to correct these issues, and fix the bugs noted in the Technical Notes. 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 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-2012:0571.

See Also

http://www.nessus.org/u?0dc7497a

http://www.nessus.org/u?58aa8933

https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2012:0571

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

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=749143

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=808199

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=809374

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=811135

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=811299

Plugin Details

Severity: Medium

ID: 59106

File Name: redhat-RHSA-2012-0571.nasl

Version: 1.24

Type: local

Agent: unix

Published: 5/16/2012

Updated: 4/15/2025

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

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Low

Score: 3.6

Vendor

Vendor Severity: Moderate

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 4.9

Temporal Score: 3.6

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

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2012-1601

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 5.5

Temporal Score: 4.8

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

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

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2011-4086

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 Ease: No known exploits are available

Patch Publication Date: 5/15/2012

Vulnerability Publication Date: 5/17/2012

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2011-4086, CVE-2012-1601

BID: 51945, 53488

RHSA: 2012:0571