A critical vulnerability in Wireshark’s packet dissection engine could allow attackers to crash the network protocol analyzer through specially crafted packets, security engineers disclosed this week.
Tracked as CVE-2025-5601, the vulnerability enables denial-of-service (DoS) attacks against both live network traffic analysis sessions and offline trace file processing workflows.
The vulnerability stems from improper memory handling in Wireshark’s column utility module, a core component responsible for formatting protocol metadata displays.
When processing malformed packets that trigger specific dissection paths, the software fails to validate buffer boundaries, leading to null pointer dereferences and subsequent application crashes.
Affected versions include all releases from Wireshark 4.4.0 through 4.4.6 and 4.2.0 through 4.2.11, covering both current and long-term support branches.
While the Wireshark team confirmed the flaw during internal testing, they emphasized that weaponized exploit attempts remain theoretical.
“An attacker could inject malicious packets into network traffic or distribute rigged .pcap files to trigger crashes,” the advisory notes, adding that successful exploitation requires either direct network access to a monitoring interface or social engineering to deliver corrupted capture files.
The vulnerability particularly threatens security operations centers and network forensic investigators who routinely analyze untrusted traffic dumps.
Wireshark Vulnerability
The column utility module’s crash condition arises when dissectors attempt to reference uninitialized memory structures while generating protocol tree metadata.
Deep packet inspection workflows exacerbate the risk, as Wireshark automatically parses hundreds of protocol implementations.
Security researchers speculate that the bug could manifest across multiple protocol handlers sharing common column formatting routines.
Packet injection attacks exploiting CVE-2025-5601 would likely target unpatched Wireshark instances monitoring promiscuous interfaces.
Attackers could craft TCP/IP packets with corrupted protocol headers that bypass standard validation checks but trigger edge-case dissection paths.
The application crashes abruptly without generating crash logs, potentially disrupting ongoing network troubleshooting or forensic investigations.
For offline analysis scenarios, malicious .pcap files containing as few as one malformed packet could crash Wireshark during file open operations.
This attack vector poses particular risks in collaborative environments where analysts exchange capture files across teams.
The vulnerability does not enable remote code execution but could facilitate data loss by interrupting active capture sessions before proper saving.
Mitigations
Wireshark maintainers released patched versions 4.4.7 and 4.2.12 with revised memory management routines in the column utility module.
Organizations should prioritize upgrading all protocol analysis workstations, especially those monitoring production networks or handling untrusted capture files.
For environments requiring extended validation cycles, temporary workarounds include limiting Wireshark to non-promiscuous monitoring modes and avoiding analysis of unrecognized .pcap files.
Network security teams should implement firewall rules to block suspicious packet injection patterns at network boundaries.
Supplemental monitoring through IDS/IPS systems can help detect potential exploitation attempts targeting unpatched Wireshark instances.
The disclosure underscores the importance of hardening network analysis tools, which often operate with elevated privileges to capture raw traffic – making them high-value targets for disruption attacks aimed at blinding infrastructure visibility.
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