Linux Kernel IPV6 Vulnerability Closed in Two Ubuntu OSes

A security vulnerability that was discovered in the Linux kernel affecting the Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (Hardy Heron) and Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (Lucid Lynx) operating systems, was announced by Canonical.

This is the kernel vulnerability found in the Linux kernel packages: CVE-2012-4444. The system's firewall could be bypassed by a remote attacker.

A bug was discovered in the Linux kernel's handling of overlapping fragments in ipv6. A remote attacker could have exploited this flaw to bypass firewalls and initial new network connections that should have been blocked by the firewall.

The security flaws can be fixed if you upgrade your system(s) to the linux-image-2.6.32-45 (2.6.32-45.101).

Don't forget to reboot your computer after the upgrade!

ATTENTION: Due to an unavoidable ABI change, the kernel packages have a new version number, which will force you to reinstall and recompile all third-party kernel modules you might have installed. Moreover, if you use the linux-restricted-modules package, you have to update it as well to get modules that work with the new Linux kernel version.