Earlier today (March 17th), Canonical announced that a new kernel update was available for the following Ubuntu distributions: 6.06 LTS (Dapper Drake), 8.04 LTS (Hardy Heron), 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex), 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) and 9.10 (Karmic Koala). As usual, this security update also applies to the respective versions of Kubuntu, Xubuntu or Edubuntu. The update patches 5 important security issues (see below for details) discovered in the Linux kernel packages by various hackers. Therefore, it is strongly recommended to update your system as soon as possible!

The following Linux kernel vulnerabilities were discovered:

1. The missing ELF interpreters were not correctly handled by the Linux kernel. This could lead to a DoS attack and crash the affected system. The issue was discovered by Mathias Krause and affects all of the aforementioned Ubuntu systems.

2. The hardware virtualization in Linux kernel failed to read /dev/port. This could lead to a DoS attack and crash the affected system. The issue was discovered by Marcelo Tosatti and affects all of the aforementioned Ubuntu systems.

3. The Linux kernel failed to manipulate netlink connector messages. This could lead to a DoS attack by consuming the entire kernel memory on the affected system. The issue was discovered by Sebastian Krahmer and affects all of the aforementioned Ubuntu systems.

4. The Linux kernel failed to validate various memory migration calls. This could lead to a DoS attack and crash the affected system or read random kernel memory. The issue was discovered by Ramon de Carvalho Valle and affects all of the aforementioned Ubuntu systems.

5. The Linux kernel failed to manipulate various futex operations. This could lead to a DoS attack and crash the affected system. The issue was discovered by Jermome Marchand and Mikael Pettersson and affects all of the aforementioned Ubuntu systems.

The above Linux kernel vulnerabilities can be fixed if you update your system today to the following specific packages:

• For Ubuntu 6.06 LTS, users should update their kernel packages to linux-image-2.6.15-55.83.

• For Ubuntu 8.04 LTS, users should update their kernel packages to linux-image-2.6.24-27.68.

• For Ubuntu 8.10, users should update their kernel packages to linux-image-2.6.27-17.46.

• For Ubuntu 9.04, users should update their kernel packages to linux-image-2.6.28-18.60.

• For Ubuntu 9.10, users should update their kernel packages to linux-image-2.6.31-20.58.

Don't forget to reboot your computer after this kernel update! To verify the kernel version, type the sudo dpkg -l linux-image-2.6.31-20-generic command in a terminal (the example is for Ubuntu 9.10 users ONLY, and it will output the version of the Linux kernel listed above).

Get the latest stable version of Ubuntu right now from Softpedia. Don't forget to share it with your friends and family!