[Beowulf] Heads up - local root exploit in Linux kernel (CVE-2017-6074)

[Christopher Samuel]

Hi all,

Just a heads up that a local root exploit has been announced in the DCCP
stack in the Linux kernel going back quite a way (2005/2006). Having it
compiled as a module (as most kernels do) doesn't help as it will
auto-load when a user tries to call into it.

Original disclosure:

http://seclists.org/oss-sec/2017/q1/471

Red Hat info (includes work-around):

https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2017-6074

Debian info:

https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2017-6074

the RHEL work around is to disable loading that module with:

echo "install dccp /bin/true" >> /etc/modprobe.d/disable-dccp.conf

but there are also new kernels out.

Good luck folks!
Chris
-- 
 Christopher Samuel        Senior Systems Administrator
 Melbourne Bioinformatics - The University of Melbourne
 Email: samuel at unimelb.edu.au Phone: +61 (0)3 903 55545