Once again, we have to remember the importance of having the software up to date. When it comes to applications, not being up to date or having a small security flaw may not be so serious, but things change when vulnerabilities exist at the operating system or kernel level. Thus, Canonical today released a new version of the Ubuntu kernel to fix various security flaws.
The corrected security flaws are collected in the reports USN 5467-1, USN-5468-1, SHE ISSN-5469-1, SHE ISSN-5470-1 y USN-5471-1. Whether by one or several of them, the affected systems are all those that enjoy official support, which are from Ubuntu 18.04 to the current 22.04, passing through 21.10, which will continue to be supported until next month. Nothing has been said about Xenial Xerus, which is currently in extended support phase (ESM).
Many vulnerabilities fixed in the Ubuntu kernel, too many
The list of bug fixes is so extensive that I wouldn't give an article like this one, which is usually short. In the USN-5467-1 report alone we counted up to 21 CVE vulnerabilities affecting Ubuntu 20.04 and 18.04; report USN-5468-1 mentions 6 affecting Ubuntu 21.10; the current Ubuntu 22.04 has kept the 20 vulnerabilities fixed in USN-54-69-1; USN-5470-1 tells us about four more bugs corrected in Focal Fossa; and USN-5471-1 corrects 8 more in Jammy Jellyfish. Total, the most up-to-date stable version would have fixed 28 vulnerabilitiesIf I haven't miscounted.
Between the there are all kinds of bugs. Some allowed to block the system with denial of service attacks, others allowed to bypass the Secure Boot restrictions and some allowed to get superuser privileges, but for the majority (not to ensure that all) physical access to the computer was required.
A couple of weeks ago they corrected three security breaches, nothing compared to today's figures. But in the end we come to the same thing: applications and some software in general, having it up to date or not is a matter of taste. Some of us prefer the newest as soon as possible and others prefer stability, even if they have to wait a little longer to use some features. What is not open to debate are the security flaws, and in this case you have to update as soon as possible.