The Debian GNU/Linux project has advised users of its stable release Jessie to update their systems as soon as possible to fix several bugs in the kernel.
Debian developer Salvatore Bonaccorso said several vulnerabilities had been discovered in the Linux kernel.
These could lead to privilege escalation, denial of service or other issues, he said.
The kernel series being patched is 3.16 and the newly patched kernel for Jessie users is 3.16.39-1+deb8u1.
{loadposition sam08}Fixes have also been released for the long-term support release, otherwise known as Debian 7 or Wheezy.
The kernel version on that release will be 3.2.84-2 after the fixes are applied.
Debian users can update from a terminal after assuming root status; two commands, apt update and apt dist-upgrade, will download and install the updates.