14 DAY TRIAL // Canonical released today a bunch of major Linux kernel updates for all supported Ubuntu releases to address more than 50 security vulnerabilities affecting various kernel components.
The new kernel security updates are now available for users of the Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver), Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus), and Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr) operating system series on 32-bit, 64-bit, Raspberry Pi 2, Amazon Web Services (AWS) systems, Google Cloud Platform (GCP) systems, and cloud environments.
According to the security advisories (here, here, and here) published today by Canonical, the updates patch 18 security vulnerabilities in the Linux 4.15 kernel of Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, 9 security vulnerabilities in the Linux 4.4 kernel of Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, and 53 security vulnerabilities in the Linux 3.13 kernel of Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.
Security flaws were patched in Linux kernel's XFS file system implementation, EXT4 file system implementation, procfs file system, JFS file system implementation, KVM implementation, generic VESA framebuffer driver, as well as Linux kernel's implementation of random seed data.
It also fixes a stack-based buffer overflow in the CDROM driver implementation, a race condition in the socket handling code, several use-after-free errors in the USB/IP implementation, a race condition in the ARM Advanced Microcontroller Bus Architecture (AMBA) driver, and an information leak in the generic SCSI driver.
Also fixed, is an information disclosure vulnerability in Linux kernel's ACPI implementation, a buffer overflow in the ACPI table parsing implementation, a race condition in the packet fanout implementation, as well as other flaws in the Ultra Wide Band driver, ALSA and USB subsystems, and numerous other drivers.
Users are urged to update their Ubuntu installations immediately
Canonical urges all Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, and Ubuntu 14.04 LTS users to update their installations immediately following the instructions at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Security/Upgrades. Kernel updates are also available for Ubuntu 16.04.5 LTS users running the Bionic HWE kernel and Ubuntu 14.04.5 LTS users using the Xenial HWE kernel.
Make sure you install the new kernel versions for your Ubuntu OS as soon as possible and then reboot the computer for the changes to be applied. Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 64-bit users must update to linux-image 4.15.0.33.35, Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 32-bit and 64-bit need to update to linux-image 4.4.0.134.140, and Ubuntu 14.04 LTS users will have to update to linux-image 3.13.0.157.167.