Linux kernel (HWE) also available for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

Mar 15, 2018 19:39 GMT  ·  By

Canonical published two security advisories on Thursday to announce the availability of Spectre mitigations for the ARM64 (AArch64) hardware architecture on its Ubuntu 17.10 and Ubuntu 16.04.4 LTS systems.

In January, Canonical released several kernel updates for Ubuntu 17.10 (Artful Aardvark) and other supported Ubuntu releases with software mitigations against the Spectre and Meltdown security vulnerabilities. These patches were first released for 64-bit (amd64) architectures, and then for 32-bit (i386), PPC64el, and s390x systems.

Today, the company announced the availability of new kernel updates that address both the Meltdown and Spectre security vulnerabilities for the ARM64 (AArch64) hardware architecture, patching the Raspberry Pi 2 kernel for Ubuntu 17.10, as well as its derivatives.

"USNS 3541-1 and 3523-1 provided mitigations for Spectre and Meltdown (CVE-2017-5715, CVE-2017-5753, CVE-2017-5754) for the i386, amd64, and ppc64el architectures in Ubuntu 17.10. This update provides the corresponding mitigations for the arm64 architecture," reads the new security advisories.

Users urged to update their installations immediately

Canonical urges users to patch their linux-raspi2 kernel packages for Raspberry Pi 2 single-board computers on Ubuntu 17.10 systems as soon as possible by installing the linux-image-4.13.0-1015-raspi2 - 4.13.0-1015.16 kernel, which is now available from the main Ubuntu software repositories.

Today's update also made available for the Linux Hardware Enablement (HWE) kernel from Ubuntu 17.10 for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) systems, but not for Raspberry Pi 2 as far as we can see. Ubuntu 16.04 LTS users running Ubuntu 17.10's kernel need to update their installations to linux-image-4.13.0-37-generic - 4.13.0-37.42~16.04.1.

To update your system, simply follow the instructions provided by Canonical at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Security/Upgrades. After a kernel update, you'll have to reboot your computer for the new kernel version to be correctly installed and enabled, and keep in mind to always update your installations to stay protected.