CVE-2026-76929
Description
A flaw was found in Wireshark. A local attacker, by enticing a user to open a specially crafted Pcapng file, could trigger an out-of-bounds read vulnerability in the Pcapng file parser. This could lead to an application crash, resulting in a denial of service.
Statement
This is a moderate impact denial of service flaw in Wireshark. The vulnerability requires a local attacker to trick a user into opening a specially crafted Pcapng file, leading to an application crash. The need for user interaction and local access reduces the overall risk.
Mitigation
To mitigate this vulnerability users must strictly avoid opening Pcapng packet capture files from untrusted or unverified sources. If business operations permit, administrators can temporarily restrict the use of Wireshark on untrusted networks to prevent the accidental ingestion of malformed traffic.
Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details
Info alert:Important note
CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authority (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications).
The following CVSS metrics and score provided are preliminary and subject to review.
CVSS v3 Score Breakdown
| Red Hat | NVD | cve.org | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base Score | 4.7 | 5.5 | 4.7 |
| Attack Vector | Local | Local | Local |
| Attack Complexity | High | Low | High |
| Privileges Required | None | None | None |
| User Interaction | Required | Required | Required |
| Scope | Unchanged | Unchanged | Unchanged |
| Confidentiality | None | None | None |
| Integrity Impact | None | None | None |
| Availability Impact | High | High | High |
Vector
Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
cve.org: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Understanding the Weakness (CWE)
Confidentiality
Technical Impact: Read Memory
An attacker could get secret values such as cryptographic keys, PII, memory addresses, or other information that could be used in additional attacks.
Confidentiality
Technical Impact: Bypass Protection Mechanism
Out-of-bounds memory could contain memory addresses or other information that can be used to bypass ASLR and other protection mechanisms in order to improve the reliability of exploiting a separate weakness for code execution.
Availability
Technical Impact: DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart
An attacker could cause a segmentation fault or crash by causing memory to be read outside of the bounds of the buffer. This is especially likely when the code reads a variable amount of data and assumes that a sentinel exists to stop the read operation, such as a NUL in a string.
Other
Technical Impact: Varies by Context
The read operation could produce other undefined or unexpected results.
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