Not able to understand "Attention" para from USN-2872-2: Linux kernel (Wily HWE) vulnerability [duplicate]

Question

From USN-2872-2 , I am not able to understand what does Attention para means. The paragraph is

ATTENTION: Due to an unavoidable ABI change the kernel updates have been given a new version number, which requires you to recompile and reinstall all third party kernel modules you might have installed. Unless you manually uninstalled the standard kernel metapackages (e.g. linux-generic, linux-generic-lts-RELEASE, linux-virtual, linux-powerpc), a standard system upgrade will automatically perform this as well.

Can you any one please explain me this in simple terms ?

Also how can I update my Kernel package so that my system will be secure from this latest Kernel vulnerability.

Answer 1

This message just explains that there's a new version number for the kernel which has been patched. It isn't something you need to worry about unless you have previously loaded third-party modules into your kernel manually. Any kernel modules loaded with dkms (such as virtualbox) will essentially take care of themselves.

Doing the normal update/upgrade procedure will ensure you have the newest, most secure version of your kernel.

With a desktop system, use the Software Updater package as per normal to install updates.

If you're using a server system, issue the following commands, with a user who has sudo privileges (the first user you created will have these by default).

sudo apt-get update

Followed by:

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

You will need to reboot your machine to use the updated kernel.