All users are urged to update as soon as possible

May 23, 2015 14:27 GMT  ·  By

After only three days from the last kernel update for Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr), Canonical published today details about a recent security flaw that was patched in the Linux kernel packages of the distribution.

A new Ubuntu Security Notice from May 23 informs users that there's a kernel update for their Ubuntu 14.04 LTS operating systems, affecting the 3.13 kernel packages of the vanilla version of Trusty Tahr.

"A security issue affects these releases of Ubuntu and its derivatives: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS," says Canonical on the Ubuntu Security Notice. "The system could be made to crash under certain conditions. The problem can be corrected by updating your system to the following package versions."

A bug was discovered in Linux kernel's IPv4 networking, which could allow a local, unprivileged user to crash the system by causing a denial of service (DoS) attack. The security flaw occurred when using Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) fast open to launch a new network connection.

Users are advised to update their systems as soon as possible

Users are advised to update their Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr) operating system to the linux-image-3.13.0-53 (3.13.0-53.89) packages. To update, open the Unity Dash, search for the Software Updater application, open it, and wait for it to reload the software repositories and find the updates.

Apply all available updates and, when it finishes, reboot the computer. When the system starts, and you login into your Unity session, open the Terminal app and execute the "uname -r" command to make sure that the kernel packages mach with the ones highlighted above.

Please note that users of Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS who are using the Linux 3.16 kernel packages from the Ubuntu 14.10 (Utopic Utopic) opearting system are not affected by this issue.

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