Tails 5.16.1 released! (2023-08-15)

General Discussion
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Tails 5.16.1

This release is an emergency release to fix a critical vulnerability in the Linux kernel.

Changes and updates

  • Update the Linux kernel to 6.1.38.This updates fixes:
    • Downfall on Intel processors (CVE-2022-40982)
    • Inception on AMD processors (CVE-2023-20569)These vulnerability could allow a malicious application running in Tails to access and steal data from another application in Tails, for example passwords stored in KeePassXC or private keys stored in Electrum.This attack is unlikely, but could be performed by a strong attacker, such as a government or a hacking firm. We are not aware of this attack being used in the wild.

Fixed problems

For more details, read our changelog.

Known issues

None specific to this release.

See the list of long-standing issues.

Get Tails 5.16.1

To upgrade your Tails USB stick and keep your persistent storage

  • Automatic upgrades are available from Tails 5.0 or later to 5.16.1.You can reduce the size of the download of future automatic upgrades by doing a manual upgrade to the latest version.
  • If you cannot do an automatic upgrade or if Tails fails to start after an automatic upgrade, please try to do a manual upgrade.

To install Tails on a new USB stick

Follow our installation instructions:

The Persistent Storage on the USB stick will be lost if you install instead of upgrading.

To download only

If you don’t need installation or upgrade instructions, you can download Tails 5.16.1 directly:

Posted 2023-08-15

Tags: announce

Direct Downloads

At mirrors.wikimedia.org:

At mirrors.edge.kernel.org:

Changelog

tails (5.16.1) unstable; urgency=medium

  • Mitigate Downfall and INCEPTION speculative-execution vulnerabilities
    (tails/tails!1215)

    Closes issues:

    • Fix Downfall and INCEPTION speculative-execution vulnerabilities
      (tails/tails#19937)

    Commits:

    • Update SquashFS sort file manually
    • Upgrade to Linux linux-image-6.1.0-11-amd64 (currently version 6.1.38-4)

  • onion-grater: deal with race condition in my_circuits() (tails/tails!1212)

    Closes issues:

    • Circuits view sometimes not displayed in Tor Browser, possibly related onion-
      grater exception and dropped restricted stream event (tails/tails#19897)

    Commits:

    • onion-grater: deal with race condition in my_circuits()

  • automailer.py: add support for notmuch (tails/tails!1213)

    Closes issues:

    • automailer.py: add support for notmuch (tails/tails#19932)

    Commits:

    • automailer: remove duplicate variable
    • automailer (notmuch): add support for attachments
    • Reformat with black
    • automailer: refactoring (extract code to function)
    • automailer: lint
    • automailer: name parameter instead of relying on position
    • automailer (notmuch): use the specified email body
    • automailer: simplify

  • Add options verification to Tails shell library (tails/tails!1211)

    Closes issues:

    • Tails shell library should verify that it is called set -e -u
      (tails/tails#6588)

    Commits:

    • Replace backticks with single quotes to prevent command substitution
    • Add another options verification to Tails shell library
    • Add options verification to Tails shell library

  • simplify and fix automailer parser config (tails/tails!1210)

    Closes issues:

    • generate-call-for-trusted-reproducer is broken: TypeError: add_parser_mailer()
      missing 1 required positional argument: ‘config’ (tails/tails#19929)

    Commits:

    • simplify and fix automailer parser config

  • create_box.sh: fix IMG_SIZE parsing on Debian Sid (tails/tails!1208)

    Closes issues:

    • Creating basebox broken on Debian Sid (tails/tails#19927)

    Commits:

    • create_box.sh: use jq for json parsing instead of awk
    • create_box.sh: fix IMG_SIZE parsing on Debian Sid

  • Test suite: make --view and --vnc-server-only compatible with Wayland without
    sudo (tails/tails!1203)

    Commits:

    • Make shellcheck happy
    • Test suite: send arbitrary options to x11vnc via the TAILS_X11VNC_OPTS
      environment variable
    • Test suite: make --view and --vnc-server-only compatible with Wayland

  • Initialize passphrase strength hint as blank, don’t show 0%! (tails/tails!1202)

    Closes issues:

    • Passphrase strength meter initially shows 0% (tails/tails#19918)

    Commits:

    • Update passphrase_view.py to remove “0%” and display blank hint initially
    • Update passphrase_dialog.py to not display “0%” as strength hint before the
      user types anything
    • Update change_passphrase_dialog.py to have a blank default hint instead of “0%”
      until user types

– Tails developers tails@boum.org Mon, 14 Aug 2023 15:11:40 +0200

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