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Wireshark disclosed CVE-2026-15168, an information disclosure flaw in its BLF file parser that can expose uninitialized heap memory when a user opens a specially crafted packet trace. The bug stems from the BLF zlib LogContainer reader trusting an attacker-controlled uncompressed_size value, allocating a non-zeroed buffer of that size, and treating Z_STREAM_END as success without confirming that zlib actually produced the claimed number of bytes.
As a result, subsequent BLF object readers can consume unread portions of the buffer as if they were valid packet data, leaking heap contents in decoded output, including through tshark and potentially sharkd responses. Wireshark said the issue affects versions 4.6.0 through 4.6.6 and 4.4.0 through 4.4.16 and was fixed in 4.6.7 and 4.4.17; the flaw was reported by Thai Duong Tran, and the vendor said no exploits were known at the time of disclosure.
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On July 8, 2026, Wireshark published security advisory wnpa-sec-2026-60 for CVE-2026-15168, describing a BLF parser information disclosure issue caused by reading uninitialized memory. The advisory said the flaw affected versions 4.6.0 through 4.6.6 and 4.4.0 through 4.4.16, with fixes released in 4.6.7 and 4.4.17.
Thai Duong Tran reported a vulnerability in Wireshark's BLF zlib LogContainer reader that could disclose uninitialized heap memory when parsing a crafted BLF file. The issue was documented in Wireshark GitLab issue #21361, including proof-of-concept details and affected versions.
After disclosure, Wireshark assigned the issue CVE-2026-15168 and merged fixes to validate that the actual decompressed size matches the claimed size in BLF zlib LogContainers. The merged fixes were referenced as merge requests including !25501 and !25524.
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Wireshark disclosed and patched a broad set of vulnerabilities across its packet analysis engine, protocol dissectors, codecs, decompression routines, and the `sharkd` backend, with the most serious issues including possible code execution, memory corruption, and denial of service. The release notes for **Wireshark 4.6.6** aggregate advisories `wnpa-sec-2026-08` through `wnpa-sec-2026-50`, while earlier coordinated fixes shipped in **4.6.5** and **4.4.15** for affected `4.6.0-4.6.4` and `4.4.0-4.4.14` branches. One high-severity flaw, tracked as **CVE-2026-5656**, allowed a crafted configuration-profile ZIP to escape the intended extraction path and plant a Lua plugin for execution on the next launch. Additional issues included crashes and memory-safety bugs in AMR-NB (`CVE-2026-5654`), iLBC (`CVE-2026-5657`), ASN.1 PER (`CVE-2026-6527`), DCP-ETSI (`CVE-2026-5653`, `CVE-2026-6530`), and later `sharkd` and Bluetooth AVRCP flaws that could crash the process or potentially enable control-flow hijack. Several vulnerabilities were reachable simply by opening a malicious packet capture or by parsing malformed traffic on the wire. Wireshark documented infinite-loop and CPU-exhaustion conditions in the USB HID dissector (**CVE-2026-6534**), OpenFlow v5 dissector (**CVE-2026-6521**), and LZ77 decompression path (**CVE-2026-6533**), alongside crashes in BEEP (**CVE-2026-6538**) and other protocol handlers. GitLab issue reports show researchers and fuzzing jobs repeatedly triggering heap overflows, double-free conditions, NULL dereferences, and non-advancing-offset parser failures in components such as DCP-ETSI, H.245, MIH, eDonkey, and `sharkd`, underscoring that malformed captures can destabilize both the GUI and `tshark`. Wireshark said it was not aware of active exploitation at disclosure time and urged users to update to the fixed releases.
Aug 21, 2026
Wireshark disclosed **CVE-2026-7378**, a flaw in the `sharkd` utility that can cause the daemon to crash when filter state from a previously loaded capture file is reused in the same session. The issue affects Wireshark versions **4.6.0 through 4.6.4** and **4.4.0 through 4.4.14**, and has been fixed in **4.6.5** and **4.4.15**. Wireshark said it is not aware of active exploitation and credited the discovery to **Alexandre de Oliveira**. The underlying bug was traced to a **heap-buffer-overflow** in `sharkd`'s `frames` method, where cached filter bitmaps were kept in a session-wide hash table and not invalidated when a new capture file was loaded. That allowed a bitmap sized for one capture to be reused against a later capture with a different frame count, leading to an out-of-bounds read in `sharkd_session_process_frames`. Maintainers said triggering the flaw requires loading two captures in one session, reusing the same filter string, and making the second capture larger under specific matching conditions; the fix clears the filter table whenever a new file is loaded.
Aug 21, 2026
Wireshark disclosed and fixed memory-safety flaws in its UMTS FP dissector that could be triggered by malformed network traffic or crafted packet capture files opened in **Wireshark**, `tshark`, or `sharkd`. One issue, tracked as **CVE-2026-15169** and published as **wnpa-sec-2026-59**, stems from `dissect_e_dch_t2_or_common_channel_info()` writing past a static `subframes[16]` array in the UMTS FP E-DCH Type-2 parser, enabling memory corruption and at minimum a reliable denial of service. Wireshark said the bug affects versions **4.6.0 through 4.6.6** and **4.4.0 through 4.4.16**, and was fixed in **4.6.7** and **4.4.17**. A related flaw in the same function was later assigned **CVE-2026-76889** after researchers showed that a packet-controlled continuation flag could keep MAC-is descriptor parsing running beyond 16 entries, causing fixed-array out-of-bounds writes to `mac_is_lchid[pdu_no][16]` and `mac_is_length[pdu_no][16]`. The bugs were reproduced with sanitizers against development and pre-release builds, and Wireshark closed the reports after merging fixes including **!25692** for UMTS-FP limits checking and **!25780** for the MAC-is descriptor handling issue. The disclosures indicate the vulnerabilities could be exploited through injected malformed packets or malicious trace files, although no public exploits were reported at disclosure time.
Aug 21, 2026