Spotlight | Reviews | Current Issue | Newsletter | Subscribe | Contact |
Departments

Partner Links
Website builder
WinWeb OnlineOffice
Shopping and price comparison with product reviews at dooyoo.co.uk

user friendly

CeBIT 2010 CFP

Linux Magazine is offering free booths for the CeBIT 2010 computer fair to selected open source projects. Apply Now!

  linux-magazine.com » Online » News » Kernel 2.6.25: 64 Bit Systems At Risk  

Print this page. Recommend
Slashdot it! Delicious Share on Facebook Tweet! Digg

Kernel 2.6.25: 64 Bit Systems At Risk

The changelog for kernel 2.6.25.11 includes just a single entry, however, it seems to be so important that the Kernel Stable Team urgently advises users to upgrade the kernel on 64 bit multiple user systems.

The patch by Geman developer Michael Karcher remove an issue in the local descriptor table (ldt) on x86_64 systems. Details of the bug have not yet been disclosed. In his release announcement Greg Kroah-Hartman writes that systems with unrestricted user accounts should definitely be updated. It can be assumed that logged in users are able to escalate their privileges thanks to the bug.

A couple of days ago, the kernel 2.6.25.10 release removed two vulnerabilities both of which affected the x86_64 platform. The first bug affected several drivers and could be exploited to run arbitrary code, or crash the kernel. The second bug affected the "sys32_ptrace()" function in "arch/x86/kernel/ptrace.c" and could cause an overflow of the "refcount" field in the "task_struct" structure, thus causing a number of system errors.

The bugs affect all 2.6.25 series kernels. The kernel development team urgently advises users to install patches.

(Jan Rähm)

Comments


Print this page. Recommend
Slashdot it! Delicious Share on Facebook Tweet! Digg
Related Articles
Firefox 2.0.0.9 Corrects Latest Release
Local Vulnerabilities in Current Kernels
JavaScript Security Bug in Opera
Security Bugs in Kernel and Rsync
Ted Ts'o Joins Linux Foundation
Embedded Maintainer for Linux Kernel Wanted
Live Streaming from ApacheCon Europe 2009

All about Apache in 19 talks

Watch 3 days full of Apache talks live from Amsterdam on March 25-27 in the convenience of your home or office. Topics are: Apache Hadoop, Tomcat for Developers and Administrators, HTTP Server Administration and much more.

Find out more

 

In the US and Canada, Linux Magazine is known as Linux Pro Magazine.
Entire contents © 2009 [Linux New Media USA, LLC]
Linux New Media web sites:
North America: [Linux Pro Magazine]
UK/Worldwide: [Linux Magazine]
Germany: [Linux-Magazin] [LinuxUser] [EasyLinux] [Linux-Community] [Linux Technical Review]
Eastern Europe: [Linux Magazine Poland] [Linux Community Poland] [Open Source DVD Poland]
International: [Linux Magazine Brazil] [EasyLinux Brazil] [Linux Magazine Spanish]
Corporate: [Linux New Media AG]