Security Bulletin: IBM Security Access Manager appliances may be affected by a kernel vulnerability known as the Dirty COW bug (CVE-2016-5195)

Summary

Linux Kernel could allow a local attacker to gain elevated privileges on the system, caused by a race condition when handling the copy-on-write (COW) breakage of private read-only memory mappings by the memory subsystem. This vulnerability is known as the Dirty COW bug.

Under certain circumstances, IBM Security Access Manager appliances might be affected by this vulnerability.

Vulnerability Details

CVEID: CVE-2016-5195**
DESCRIPTION:** Linux Kernel could allow a local attacker to gain elevated privileges on the system, caused by a race condition when handling the copy-on-write (COW) breakage of private read-only memory mappings by the memory subsystem. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability to gain write access to read-only memory mappings and elevated privileges on the system. Note: This vulnerability is known as the Dirty COW bug.
CVSS Base Score: 8.4
CVSS Temporal Score: See https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/118170 for the current score
CVSS Environmental Score*: Undefined
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H)

Affected Products and Versions

IBM Security Access Manager for Web 7.0 appliances, all firmware versions.

IBM Security Access Manager for Web 8.0 appliances, all firmware versions.

IBM Security Access Manager for Mobile 8.0 appliances, all firmware versions.

IBM Security Access Manager 9.0 appliances, all firmware versions.

Remediation/Fixes

IBM has provided patches for all affected versions. Follow the installation instructions in the README files included with the patch.

Workarounds and Mitigations

None.