Security News
Kernel.org Subject: PC speaker Date: Mon, 14 Jun 2021 23:32:32 -0400 Is it possible to write a kernel module which, when loaded, will blow the PC speaker? The idea was raised about seeing if there was a way to blow the PC speaker by loading a kernel module.
Five high-severity security flaws in Dell's firmware update driver are impacting potentially hundreds of millions of Dell desktops, laptops, notebooks and tablets, researchers said. The multiple local privilege-escalation bugs exist in the firmware update driver version 2.3 module, which has been in use since 2009.
The patches cover 13 different CVE numbers, running from CVE-2021-1074 to CVE-2021-1078 for the GPU driver fixes, and from CVE-2021-1080 to CVE-2021-1087 for the vGPU products. The GPU software bug that ended up with the highest "Base score" using the well-known CVSS bug-rating system was CVE-2021-1074, described as a "Vulnerability in the [GPU driver] installer where an attacker with local system access may replace an application resource with malicious files."
An information-disclosure security vulnerability has been discovered in the Linux kernel, which can be exploited to expose information in the kernel stack memory of vulnerable devices. It contains /proc/[pid] subdirectories, each of which contains files and subdirectories exposing information about specific processes, readable by using the corresponding process ID. In the case of the "Syscall" file, it's a legitimate Linux operating system file that contains logs of system calls used by the kernel.
Recently the Linux kernel community was aflame due to efforts by researchers at the University of Minnesota to intentionally torpedo Linux security by submitting faulty patches. Organizations of all sizes have depended upon Linux for performance and security for decades; in fact, those same organizations depend upon a wide array of open source, generally.
Recent Linux kernel updates include patches for a couple of vulnerabilities that could allow an attacker to bypass mitigations designed to protect devices against Spectre attacks. Symantec reported on Monday that Piotr Krysiuk, a member of its Threat Hunter team, has identified two new vulnerabilities in the Linux kernel that can be exploited to bypass mitigations for the Spectre vulnerabilities.
Researchers at cybersecurity company GRIMM recently published an interesting trio of bugs they found in the Linux kernel. Except, of course, that most Linux systems not only come with hundreds or even thousands of kernel modules in the /lib/modules directory tree, ready to use in case they are ever needed, but also come configured to allow suitably authorised apps to trigger the automatic loading of modules on demand.
Three vulnerabilities found in the iSCSI subsystem of the Linux kernel could allow local attackers with basic user privileges to gain root privileges on unpatched Linux systems. GRIMM researchers discovered the bugs 15 years after they were introduced in 2006 during the initial development stages of the iSCSI kernel subsystem.
A total of five vulnerabilities that could lead to local privilege escalation were recently identified and fixed in the Linux kernel. Identified by Positive Technologies security researcher Alexander Popov, the high severity bugs resided in the virtual socket implementation of the Linux kernel.
Security researcher Alexander Popov has discovered and fixed five similar issues in the virtual socket implementation of the Linux kernel. The vulnerabilities could be exploited for local privilege escalation, as confirmed in experiments on Fedora 33 Server.