RHSA-2016:0046 - Security Advisory

Topic

Updated kernel packages that fix two security issues are now available for
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.2 Advanced Update Support.

Red Hat Product Security has rated this update as having Important security
impact. Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base scores, which give
detailed severity ratings, are available for each vulnerability from the
CVE links in the References section.

Description

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

• It was found that the x86 ISA (Instruction Set Architecture) is prone to

a denial of service attack inside a virtualized environment in the form of
an infinite loop in the microcode due to the way (sequential) delivering of
benign exceptions such as #AC (alignment check exception) and #DB (debug
exception) is handled. A privileged user inside a guest could use these
flaws to create denial of service conditions on the host kernel.
(CVE-2015-5307, CVE-2015-8104, Important)

Red Hat would like to thank Ben Serebrin of Google Inc. for reporting the
CVE-2015-5307 issue.

All kernel users are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which
contain backported patches to correct these issues. The system must be
rebooted for this update to take effect.

Solution

Before applying this update, make sure all previously released errata
relevant to your system have been applied.

For details on how to apply this update, refer to:

https://access.redhat.com/articles/11258

Affected Products

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - AUS 6.2 x86_64

Fixes

• BZ - 1277172 - CVE-2015-5307 virt: guest to host DoS by triggering an infinite loop in microcode via #AC exception
• BZ - 1278496 - CVE-2015-8104 virt: guest to host DoS by triggering an infinite loop in microcode via #DB exception

CVEs

• CVE-2015-5307
• CVE-2015-8104

References

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