Oracle Linux: CVE-2017-12190: ELSA-2018-1854: kernel security and bug fix update (IMPORTANT) (Multiple Advisories)

The bio_map_user_iov and bio_unmap_user functions in block/bio.c in the Linux kernel before 4.13.8 do unbalanced refcounting when a SCSI I/O vector has small consecutive buffers belonging to the same page. The bio_add_pc_page function merges them into one, but the page reference is never dropped. This causes a memory leak and possible system lockup (exploitable against the host OS by a guest OS user, if a SCSI disk is passed through to a virtual machine) due to an out-of-memory condition.
It was found that in the Linux kernel through v4.14-rc5, bio_map_user_iov() and bio_unmap_user() in 'block/bio.c' do unbalanced pages refcounting if IO vector has small consecutive buffers belonging to the same page. bio_add_pc_page() merges them into one, but the page reference is never dropped, causing a memory leak and possible system lockup due to out-of-memory condition.