Synopsis

Important: kernel security, bug fix, and enhancement update

Type/Severity

Security Advisory: Important

Topic

An update for kernel is now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.

Red Hat Product Security has rated this update as having a security impact
of Important. A Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base score,
which gives a detailed severity rating, is available for each vulnerability
from the CVE link(s) in the References section.

Description

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

These updated kernel packages include several security issues and numerous bug fixes. Space precludes documenting all of these bug fixes in this advisory. To see the complete list of bug fixes, users are directed to the related Knowledge Article: https://access.redhat.com/articles/2986951.

Security Fix(es):

• A race condition flaw was found in the N_HLDC Linux kernel driver when accessing n_hdlc.tbuf list that can lead to double free. A local, unprivileged user able to set the HDLC line discipline on the tty device could use this flaw to increase their privileges on the system. (CVE-2017-2636, Important)
• A flaw was found in the Linux kernel key management subsystem in which a local attacker could crash the kernel or corrupt the stack and additional memory (denial of service) by supplying a specially crafted RSA key. This flaw panics the machine during the verification of the RSA key. (CVE-2016-8650, Moderate)
• A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's implementation of setsockopt for the SO_{SND|RCV}BUFFORCE setsockopt() system call. Users with non-namespace CAP_NET_ADMIN are able to trigger this call and create a situation in which the sockets sendbuff data size could be negative. This could adversely affect memory allocations and create situations where the system could crash or cause memory corruption. (CVE-2016-9793, Moderate)
• A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's handling of clearing SELinux attributes on /proc/pid/attr files. An empty (null) write to this file can crash the system by causing the system to attempt to access unmapped kernel memory. (CVE-2017-2618, Moderate)

Red Hat would like to thank Alexander Popov for reporting CVE-2017-2636 and Ralf Spenneberg for reporting CVE-2016-8650. The CVE-2017-2618 issue was discovered by Paul Moore (Red Hat Engineering).

Solution

For details on how to apply this update, which includes the changes
described in this advisory, refer to:

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

The system must be rebooted for this update to take effect.

Affected Products

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 7 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 7.7 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 7.6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 7.5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 7.4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 7.3 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - AUS 7.6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 7 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 7 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 7 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems - Extended Update Support 7.7 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems - Extended Update Support 7.6 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems - Extended Update Support 7.5 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 7 ppc64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian - Extended Update Support 7.7 ppc64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian - Extended Update Support 7.6 ppc64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian - Extended Update Support 7.5 ppc64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian - Extended Update Support 7.4 ppc64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian - Extended Update Support 7.3 ppc64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Scientific Computing 7 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux EUS Compute Node 7.7 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux EUS Compute Node 7.6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux EUS Compute Node 7.5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux EUS Compute Node 7.4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux EUS Compute Node 7.3 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - AUS 7.7 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - AUS 7.4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - AUS 7.3 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems - Extended Update Support 7.4 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems - Extended Update Support 7.3 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, little endian 7 ppc64le
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, little endian - Extended Update Support 7.7 ppc64le
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, little endian - Extended Update Support 7.6 ppc64le
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, little endian - Extended Update Support 7.5 ppc64le
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, little endian - Extended Update Support 7.4 ppc64le
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, little endian - Extended Update Support 7.3 ppc64le
• Red Hat Virtualization Host 4 for RHEL 7 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - TUS 7.7 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - TUS 7.6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - TUS 7.3 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (for IBM Power LE) - Update Services for SAP Solutions 7.7 ppc64le
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (for IBM Power LE) - Update Services for SAP Solutions 7.6 ppc64le
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (for IBM Power LE) - Update Services for SAP Solutions 7.4 ppc64le
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (for IBM Power LE) - Update Services for SAP Solutions 7.3 ppc64le
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Update Services for SAP Solutions 7.7 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Update Services for SAP Solutions 7.6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Update Services for SAP Solutions 7.4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Update Services for SAP Solutions 7.3 x86_64

Fixes

• BZ - 1395187 - CVE-2016-8650 kernel: Null pointer dereference via keyctl
• BZ - 1402013 - CVE-2016-9793 kernel: Signed overflow for SO_{SND|RCV}BUFFORCE
• BZ - 1419916 - CVE-2017-2618 kernel: Off-by-one error in selinux_setprocattr (/proc/self/attr/fscreate)
• BZ - 1428319 - CVE-2017-2636 kernel: Race condition access to n_hdlc.tbuf causes double free in n_hdlc_release()

CVEs

• CVE-2016-8650
• CVE-2016-9793
• CVE-2017-2618
• CVE-2017-2636

References