Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver) Receives First Kernel Live Patch, Update Now

Published last week on May 25, the kernel live patch is available for Ubuntu 18.04 LTS systems running the Linux 4.15 kernel, as well as for Ubuntu 16.04.4 LTS and Ubuntu 14.04.5 LTS systems running the Linux 4.4 kernel. It patches a total of four security vulnerabilities discovered by various security researchers. Among these, we can mention a branch-pruning logic issue (CVE-2017-17862) with Linux kernel’s Berkeley Packet Filter (BPF) implementation that could allow a local attacker to cause a denial of service, and a memory leak (CVE-2018-8087) in the hwsim_new_radio_nl function that could let local users to cause a denial of service (memory consumption).