The Ubuntu 15.04, 14.04 LTS, and Ubuntu 12.04 LTS operating systems have just received a new update for the Nvidia drivers in order to correct a security issue.
We are used to see all kinds of packages getting security updates, but we hardly notice any Nvidia entries, or from other hardware manufacturers for that matter. Proprietary drivers are hardly the subject of security notices, but it happens from time to time. It’s clear that updating the system should be done sooner rather than later.
“Dario Weisser discovered that the NVIDIA graphics drivers incorrectly handled certain IOCTL writes. A local attacker could use this issue to possibly gain root privileges,” the report says.
For a more detailed description of the issue, you can see Canonical’s security notification. Users have been advised to upgrade their systems as soon as possible.
In general, a standard system update will make all the necessary changes and you will need to reboot the PC to complete.
You can also use the terminal to update the system. Just enter these commands in a terminal near you:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
The procedure should be quite fast if you don’t have any other packages that need to be installed. In any case, it’s a good idea to upgrade your operating system from time to time in order to correct any other vulnerabilities that might appear. Also, please keep in mind that if you have any other Nvidia driver installed that’s newer than this one, it won’t be replaced.
Via Softpedia