| Description: | The kernel packages contain the Linux kernel, the core of any Linux operating system.
It was found that Linux kernel's ptrace subsystem did not properly sanitize the address-space-control bits when the program-status word (PSW) was being set. On IBM S/390 systems, a local, unprivileged user could use this flaw to set address-space-control bits to the kernel space, and thus gain read and write access to kernel memory. (CVE-2014-3534, Important)
It was found that the permission checks performed by the Linux kernel when a netlink message was received were not sufficient. A local, unprivileged user could potentially bypass these restrictions by passing a netlink socket as stdout or stderr to a more privileged process and altering the output of this process. (CVE-2014-0181, Moderate)
It was found that a remote attacker could use a race condition flaw in the ath_tx_aggr_sleep() function to crash the system by creating large network traffic on the system's Atheros 9k wireless network adapter. (CVE-2014-2672, Moderate)
A flaw was found in the way the Linux kernel performed forking inside of a transaction. A local, unprivileged user on a PowerPC system that supports transactional memory could use this flaw to crash the system. (CVE-2014-2673, Moderate)
A race condition flaw was found in the way the Linux kernel's mac80211 subsystem implementation handled synchronization between TX and STA wake-up code paths. A remote attacker could use this flaw to crash the system. (CVE-2014-2706, Moderate)
An integer underflow flaw was found in the way the Linux kernel's Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) implementation processed certain COOKIE_ECHO packets. By sending a specially crafted SCTP packet, a remote attacker could use this flaw to prevent legitimate connections to a particular SCTP server socket to be made. (CVE-2014-4667, Moderate)
Red Hat would like to thank Martin Schwidefsky of IBM for reporting CVE-2014-3534, Andy Lutomirski for reporting CVE-2014-0181, and Gopal Reddy Kodudula of Nokia Siemens Networks for reporting CVE-2014-4667.
This update also fixes the following bugs:
Due to a NULL pointer dereference bug in the IPIP and SIT tunneling code, a kernel panic could be triggered when using IPIP or SIT tunnels with IPsec. This update restructures the related code to avoid a NULL pointer dereference and the kernel no longer panics when using IPIP or SIT tunnels with IPsec. (BZ#1114957)
Previously, an IBM POWER8 system could terminate unexpectedly when the kernel received an IRQ while handling a transactional memory re-checkpoint critical section. This update ensures that IRQs are disabled in this situation and the problem no longer occurs. (BZ#1113150)
A missing read memory barrier, rmb(), in the bnx2x driver caused the kernel to crash under various circumstances. This problem has been fixed by adding an rmb() call to the relevant place in the bnx2x code. (BZ#1107721)
The hpwdt driver previously emitted a panic message that was misleading on certain HP systems. This update ensures that upon a kernel panic, hpwdt displays information valid on all HP systems. (BZ#1096961)
The qla2xxx driver has been upgraded to version 8.06.00.08.07.0-k3, which provides a number of bug fixes over the previous version in order to correct various timeout problems with the mailbox commands. (BZ#1112389)
The SCSI mid-layer could retry an I/O operation indefinitely if a storage array repeatedly returned a CHECK CONDITION status to that I/O operation but the sense data was invalid. This update fixes the problem by limiting a time for which is such an I/O operation retried. (BZ#1114468)
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.
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