Overview
Extended Security Maintenance gets an extension, Linux disk encryption and
authentication goes under the microscope and we cover security updates for
libgcrypt, the Linux kernel, Python, and more.
This week in Ubuntu Security Updates
[USN-5078-2] Squashfs-Tools vulnerabilities [01:02]
2 CVEs addressed in Xenial ESM (16.04 ESM)CVE-2021-41072 CVE-2021-40153 Episode 131[USN-5080-1, USN-5080-2] Libgcrypt vulnerabilities [01:43]
2 CVEs addressed in Xenial ESM (16.04 ESM), Bionic (18.04 LTS), Focal (20.04 LTS), Hirsute (21.04)CVE-2021-40528 CVE-2021-33560 Side-channel attacks against the various ElGamal implementations inOpenPGP - https://eprint.iacr.org/2021/923 - researchers from IBM
Research Europe
Patent free public key encryption scheme - popular in OpenPGP - 1 in 6registered OpenPGP keys have an ElGamal subkey
Various implementations of ElGamal are used in different OpenPGPimplementations - Go stdlib, Crypto++ and gcrypt
libgcrypt has previously had other side-channel vulns found and was usedin the development of FLUSH+RELOAD attack against GnuPG
This attack exploits the different configurations used in the variousimplementations to use timing differences to be able to recover plaintext
Fixed to remove support for smaller key lengths and add exponent blinding(combining the exponent with randomness to avoid it being inferred by
timing analysis)
[USN-5071-2] Linux kernel (HWE) vulnerabilities [04:11]
5 CVEs addressed in Bionic (18.04 LTS)CVE-2021-3612 CVE-2021-22543 CVE-2020-36311 CVE-2021-3653 CVE-2021-3656 AMD nested virtualisation vulns (Episode 130, Episode 131)2 other KVM vulns - UAFOOB write in joystick subsystem via a malicious ioctl()requires a joystick device to be presentsnaps joystick interface is not auto-connected by default[USN-5071-3] Linux kernel (Raspberry Pi) vulnerabilities
2 CVEs addressed in Bionic (18.04 LTS), Focal (20.04 LTS)CVE-2021-3612 CVE-2021-22543 [USN-5082-1] Linux kernel (OEM) vulnerabilities
3 CVEs addressed in Focal (20.04 LTS)CVE-2021-3609 CVE-2021-3653 CVE-2021-3656 CAN BCM UAF (Episode 121), AMD nested virtualisation[USN-5073-2] Linux kernel (GCP) vulnerabilities
5 CVEs addressed in Xenial ESM (16.04 ESM), Bionic (18.04 LTS)CVE-2021-38160 CVE-2021-3612 CVE-2021-34693 CVE-2021-3653 CVE-2021-3656 [USN-5073-3] Linux kernel (Raspberry Pi) vulnerabilities
3 CVEs addressed in Bionic (18.04 LTS)CVE-2021-38160 CVE-2021-3612 CVE-2021-34693 [USN-5079-3] curl vulnerabilities [06:34]
3 CVEs addressed in Bionic (18.04 LTS)CVE-2021-22947 CVE-2021-22946 CVE-2021-22945 Episode 131[USN-5081-1] Qt vulnerabilities [06:49]
2 CVEs addressed in Bionic (18.04 LTS)CVE-2021-38593 CVE-2020-17507 2 issues in graphics / image handlingcrafted XBM trigger OOB read -> crashOOB write when rendering SVG or other crafted vector content[USN-5083-1] Python vulnerabilities [07:22]
2 CVEs addressed in Trusty ESM (14.04 ESM), Xenial ESM (16.04 ESM)CVE-2021-3737 CVE-2021-3733 ReDOS - a malicious HTTP server which would send a crafted response forBasicAuth which would cause high CPU usage in trying to match the header
value via a regex - fixed to use a simpler regex
Malicious server could cause a client to hang even if the client had seta timeout - server sends a ‘100 Continue’ response and the client would
sit there waiting to receive more input which would never arrive (since
server is malicious)
[USN-5084-1] LibTIFF vulnerability [08:32]
1 CVEs addressed in Focal (20.04 LTS)CVE-2020-19143 Buffer overflow via crafted TIFF file[USN-5079-4] curl regression [08:42]
2 CVEs addressed in Trusty ESM (14.04 ESM), Xenial ESM (16.04 ESM)CVE-2021-22947 CVE-2021-22946 Mistake in backporting patch would cause STARTTLS to fail when used forSMTP only - thanks for tuaris for metioning this on
https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2467177 but next time please
file a LP bug directly as you will get our attention much faster (and
more reliably)
Goings on in Ubuntu Security Community
Authenticated boot and disk encryption on Linux [09:28]
http://0pointer.net/blog/authenticated-boot-and-disk-encryption-on-linux.htmlsystemd focused review of existing FDE in general purpose Linux distroswith pointers to proposed mechanisms to implement authenticated FDE etc
Laments lack of authenticated initrd, use of TPMs etcProposal is quite different than traditional distros - immutable,authenticated /usr, encrypted, authenticated /etc, /var and per-user
/home/user encryption using their own login password
UC20 already does TPM backed FDE with authenticationUbuntu 14.04 and 16.04 ESM extended [14:16]
https://ubuntu.com/blog/ubuntu-14-04-and-16-04-lifecycle-extended-to-ten-yearsTotal of 10 years of support (5 LTS, 5 ESM)RELEASE
RELEASE DATE
END OF LIFE*
Ubuntu 14.04 (Trusty Tahr)
April 2014
April 2024(from April 2022)
Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial Xerus)
April 2016
April 2026(from April 2024)
Ubuntu 18.04 (Bionic Beaver)
April 2018
April 2028(unchanged)
Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal Fossa)
April 2020
April 2030(unchanged)
Use extra time to plan upgradesHiring [15:48]
Linux Cryptography and Security Engineer
https://canonical.com/careers/2612092/linux-cryptography-and-security-engineer-remoteSecurity Engineer - Ubuntu
https://canonical.com/careers/2925180/security-engineer-ubuntu-remoteSecurity Product Manager
https://canonical.com/careers/2278145/security-product-manager-remoteGet in contact
#ubuntu-security on the Libera.Chat IRC networkubuntu-hardened mailing listSecurity section on discourse.ubuntu.com@ubuntu_sec on twitter