It's also available for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS HWE systems

Apr 4, 2018 09:00 GMT  ·  By

Canonical has released a major Linux kernel update for the Ubuntu 17.10 (Artful Aardvark) operating system series addressing more than 20 security vulnerabilities affecting the Linux 4.13 kernel.

According to the security advisory, a total of 22 security vulnerabilities were patched in this new kernel update, including several use-after-free vulnerabilities in Linux kernel's ALSA PCM subsystem, network namespaces implementation, a race condition in the OCFS2 filesystem implementation, as well as a race condition in loop block device implementation.

Issues were also fixed Linux kernel's KVM implementation, HugeTLB component, HMAC implementation, netfilter component, keyring implementation, the netfilter passive OS fingerprinting (xt_osf) module, the Salsa20 encryption algorithm implementation, the Broadcom NetXtremeII Ethernet driver, Reliable Datagram Socket (RDS) implementation, and the usbtest device driver.

In addition, the kernel update addresses bugs in the SoundGraph iMON USB, IMS Passenger Control Unit USB, DiBcom DiB0700 USB DVB, ASIX Ethernet USB, CDC USB Ethernet, and QMI WWAN USB drivers within the Linux kernel that could allow a physically proximate attacker to crash the vulnerable system by causing a denial of service.

Users are urged to update their systems immediately

Canonical urges all Ubuntu 17.10 (Artful Aardvark) users to update their systems as soon as possible to the new kernel version (linux-image-4.13.0-38 4.13.0-38.43) that's available for installation from the main archives of Ubuntu 17.10 and its derivatives. To update your system, you can follow the instructions provided by Canonical at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Security/Upgrades.

The kernel update is also available for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) users using the HWE (Hardware Enablement) kernel from Ubuntu 17.10. This is available for Google Cloud Platform (GCP) systems and OEM processors, in addition to 64-bit and 32-bit platforms on Ubuntu 16.04.4 or later systems. Please keep in mind to reboot your computers after installing the new kernel version.