(RHSA-2014:0772) Important: kernel security and bug fix update

The kernel packages contain the Linux kernel, the core of any Linux
operating system.

• A flaw was found in the way the Linux kernel’s floppy driver handled user
  space provided data in certain error code paths while processing FDRAWCMD
  IOCTL commands. A local user with write access to /dev/fdX could use this
  flaw to free (using the kfree() function) arbitrary kernel memory.
  (CVE-2014-1737, Important)

• It was found that the Linux kernel’s floppy driver leaked internal kernel
  memory addresses to user space during the processing of the FDRAWCMD IOCTL
  command. A local user with write access to /dev/fdX could use this flaw to
  obtain information about the kernel heap arrangement. (CVE-2014-1738, Low)

Note: A local user with write access to /dev/fdX could use these two flaws
(CVE-2014-1737 in combination with CVE-2014-1738) to escalate their
privileges on the system.

• A flaw was found in the way the Linux kernel’s TCP/IP protocol suite
  implementation handled TCP packets with both the SYN and FIN flags set.
  A remote attacker could use this flaw to consume an excessive amount of
  resources on the target system, potentially resulting in a denial of
  service. (CVE-2012-6638, Moderate)

Red Hat would like to thank Matthew Daley for reporting CVE-2014-1737 and
CVE-2014-1738.

This update also fixes the following bugs:

• While under heavy load, some Fibre Channel storage devices, such as
  Hitachi and HP Open-V series, can send a logout (LOGO) message to the host
  system. However, due to a bug in the lpfc driver, this could result in a
  loss of active paths to the storage and the paths could not be recovered
  without manual intervention. This update corrects the lpfc driver to ensure
  automatic recovery of the lost paths to the storage in this scenario.
  (BZ#1096060)

• A bug in the futex system call could result in an overflow when passing a
  very large positive timeout. As a consequence, the FUTEX_WAIT operation did
  not work as intended and the system call was timing out immediately.
  A backported patch fixes this bug by limiting very large positive timeouts
  to the maximal supported value. (BZ#1091831)

All kernel users are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which
contain backported patches to correct these issues. The system must be
rebooted for this update to take effect.