Canonical has published new security advisories with first HWE (Hardware Enablement) kernel to Ubuntu users. The new kernel update patches Linux 4.8 within Ubuntu 16.10 (Yakkety Yak) and Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS (Xenial Xerus).
The Canonical team has addressed a majorly critical security vulnerability that could lead to denial of service (DoS) attacks through Linux kernel. The vulnerability, first discovered by Alexander Popov, can let a local attacker gain privilege access to cause DoS attack.
As per Ubuntu Security Notice USN-3221-1, the attacker can gain administrative privilege alongside causing DoS.
Canonical has also included the fix for CVE-2017-2536 to Linux 4.4 kernel. The kernel is being used in Ubuntu 16.04, 16.04.1, 14.04.5 and 12.04.5 LTS, while the security issue has affected various Ubuntu versions across different hardware.
However, the issue directly affects Ubuntu 16.10 for Raspberry Pi 2 and Ubuntu 16.04 LTS for Raspberry Pi 2, Snapdragon and Google Container Engine (GKE) systems as well as Ubuntu 14.04 LRS, Ubuntu 12.04 LTS and all other official derivatives.
Canonical recommends all users to update their systems as soon as possible. Images for all LTS versions are now available on respective repositories. Users can follow the mentioned upgrade instructions here on the Ubuntu website to get the latest build on their systems.
