Users have been advised to upgrade as soon as possible

May 20, 2015 12:57 GMT  ·  By

Canonical has published details about a few vulnerabilities that were found and corrected in the Linux kernel packages, affecting the kernel for Ubuntu 14.10 (Utopic Unicon) operating system.

The problems that affected Ubuntu 14.10 (Utopic Unicon) operating system are described in the security notifications: CVE-2014-9710, CVE-2015-3331, and CVE-2015-3332.

"A memory corruption issue was discovered in AES decryption when using the Intel AES-NI accelerated code path. A remote attacker could exploit this flaw to cause a denial of service (system crash) or potentially escalate privileges on Intel base machines with AEC-GCM mode IPSec security association," reads the security notice.

This is just one of the issues that have been found and corrected with the latest update. The security flaws can be fixed if you upgrade your system to the linux-image-3.16.0-38-generic (3.16.0-38.52) package. Don't forget to reboot your computer after the upgrade. It can be postponed, but the update needs a restart in order to be completed.

ATTENTION: Due to an unavoidable ABI change, the kernel packages have a new version number, which will force you to reinstall and recompile all third-party kernel modules you might have installed. Moreover, if you use the linux-restricted-modules package, you have to update it as well to get modules that work with the new Linux kernel version.