New security vulnerabilities (CVE-2018-14634) affects CentOS and Red Hat Linux

The security team at Qualys Research Labs has released new detailed information and proof of concept (PoC) code for the Linux kernel vulnerability called “Mutagen Astronomy,” tracking number CVE-2018-14634, currently affecting only CentOS and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

According to Qualys researchers, the actual bug exists in the Linux kernel’s create_elf_tables() function, which can cause a buffer overflow and execute malicious code with root privileges.

The vulnerability appeared in the Linux kernel between July 19, 2007 (kernel commit: b6a2fea39318) and July 7, 2017 (kernel commit: da029c11e6b1).

The researchers said: “Even though all Linux kernels are technically vulnerable, this issue is mitigated by a one-year-old patch that was backported to most long-term kernels and makes exploitation impossible. However, Red Hat Enterprise Linux and CentOS have not backported this patch, and are therefore vulnerable and exploitable.”

In a statement released today, the Red Hat team confirmed this issue: This vulnerability affects the kernel packages included with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, 7, and Red Hat Enterprise MRG 2 and will be updated as soon as possible to resolve this issue. You can mitigate the problem with security recommendations.”

Source: ZDNet