Some vulnerabilities have been reported in the Linux Kernel, which can be exploited by malicious, local users to cause a DoS (Denial of Service).

1) An error within the "next_pidmap()" function in kernel/pid.c can be exploited to cause a kernel crash by e.g. initiating a specially crafted "getdents()" system call.

2) An error within the "ubifs_fsync()" function in fs/ubifs/file.c can be exploited to cause a kernel crash by performing an "fsync()" on a file on a read-only mounted UBIFS file system.

3) An error within the "cifs_close()" function in fs/cifs/file.c can be exploited to cause a NULL pointer dereference by opening files with "O_DIRECT".

Solution
Update to version 2.6.38.4.

Provided and/or discovered by
1) Tavis Ormandy
2) Reuben Dowle
3) Ben Greear

Changelog
Further details available to Secunia VIM customers

Original Advisory
http://groups.google.com/group/fa.linux.kernel/browse_thread/thread/93c1088451fd3522/4a28ecb7f755a88d?#4a28ecb7f755a88d
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commitdiff;h=c78193e9c7bcbf25b8237ad0dec82f805c4ea69b
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commitdiff;h=d8bdc59f215e62098bc5b4256fd9928bf27053a1
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commitdiff;h=78530bf7f2559b317c04991b52217c1608d5a58d
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commitdiff;h=7797069305d13252fd66cf722aa8f2cbeb3c95cd
http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel.cifs/2954

Deep Links
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