14 DAY TRIAL // Canonical has announced that a few vulnerabilities were found in the Linux kernel packages, affecting the kernel for Ubuntu 14.10 (Utopic Unicon) operating system, and they have been corrected.
The problems that affected Ubuntu 14.10 (Utopic Unicon) operating system are described in the security notifications: CVE-2015-2150, CVE-2015-2666, CVE-2015-2830, and CVE-2015-2922.
"It was discovered that the Linux kernel's IPv6 networking stack has a flaw that allows using route advertisement (RA) messages to set the 'hop_limit' to values that are too low. An unprivileged attacker on a local network could exploit this flaw to cause a denial of service (IPv6 messages dropped)," reads the security notice.
This is just one of the problems found and corrected with the latest update. The security flaws can be fixed if you upgrade your system to the linux-image-3.16.0-36-generic (3.16.0-36.48) 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.