Users are urged to update their systems as soon as possible

Aug 31, 2016 03:30 GMT  ·  By

We reported the other day on the availability of new kernel updates for the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus), as well as for the Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr) and Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin) operating systems.

One day later, on August 30, 2016, Canonical published a new security advisory to inform the Ubuntu Linux community about the availability of an updated kernel for the Raspberry Pi 2 port of the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) operating system, patching the same eight vulnerabilities discovered in the desktop and server kernel packages.

If you didn't read our previous report, we can tell you now that among the patched kernel security flaws are an information leak in Linux kernel's RDS (Reliable Datagram Sockets) implementation, a flaw in the TCP implementation, a race condition in the MIC VOP driver, as well as a heap-based buffer overflow in the USB HID driver.

Additionally, the patched kernel addresses a race condition in Linux kernel's MIC VOP driver, some minor issues with PowerPC platforms, various bugs in the OverlayFS file system, and some errors with the airspy USB device kernel driver, which didn't function properly.

Update your Ubuntu 16.04 LTS system(s) now

Canonical urges all users of the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) port for Raspberry Pi 2 single-board computers to update the kernel packages to the new version, namely linux-image-4.4.0-1021-raspi2 (4.4.0-1021.27), as soon as possible. The patched kernel is already available in the stable repositories.

To update, simply run the APT command-line tool in a terminal emulator or use a graphical package manager, such as Ubuntu Software or Synaptic Package Manager. For more details, don't hesitate to read the instructions at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Security/Upgrades, and don't forget to reboot your system once the kernel was installed.