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Wireshark disclosed a vulnerability in its Tektronix K12xx/.rf5 file parser that can crash the packet analyzer when a user opens a specially crafted capture file. The issue, tracked as CVE-2026-76885 and wnpa-sec-2026-71, stems from incorrect handling of skipped 16-byte blobs in get_record(), which can inflate the reported record length and lead downstream functions such as k12_read(), k12_seek_read(), and process_packet_data() to read past a heap buffer boundary.
The bug was reported by Jaime Cavero and reproduced with AddressSanitizer in both tshark and capinfos using a synthetic malicious .rf5 sample. Wireshark said the flaw affects versions 4.6.0 through 4.6.7 and 4.4.0 through 4.4.17, and was fixed in 4.6.8 and 4.4.18 through merged K12 buffer-overrun patches; the project said no active exploits are known, but warned that an attacker could trigger a denial of service by convincing a target to open a malformed capture file.
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Wireshark published security advisory wnpa-sec-2026-71 for the Tektronix K12xx file parser crash and referenced issue 21414. The advisory credited Jaime Cavero with discovery and said no exploits were known.
The reporter confidentially sent a reproducer archive for the Tektronix K12 .rf5 heap out-of-bounds read vulnerability to security@wireshark.org. The issue was later assigned CVE-2026-76885.
Wireshark fixed the Tektronix K12xx file parser crash in versions 4.6.8 and 4.4.18. The flaw affected versions 4.6.0 through 4.6.7 and 4.4.0 through 4.4.17.
A GitLab issue documented a heap out-of-bounds read in Wireshark's Tektronix K12 .rf5 parser, including reproduction details showing a crafted file could trigger a read past an 8192-byte heap allocation. The issue notes that fixes were later merged through K12 buffer overrun merge requests.
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Wireshark disclosed **CVE-2026-6532**, a crash-causing flaw in the **Kismet protocol dissector** that can be triggered by a malformed packet on the network or by opening a crafted packet capture file. 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 no exploits are known and credited **Sharon Brizinov** with discovering the vulnerability. A related fuzzing report showed a **heap-buffer-overflow** in `tshark` while processing a crafted capture, with the crash occurring in `format_text_internal` and being reached through `packet-kismet.c` during packet dissection. The bug was reproduced in Wireshark's CI fuzzing environment on Ubuntu 24.04.4 LTS, and the original crash report was later marked as a duplicate of a dedicated Kismet dissector issue and explicitly assigned **CVE-2026-6532**.
Aug 21, 2026
Wireshark disclosed a high-severity flaw in its Kerberos protocol dissector that can crash **Wireshark** or **TShark** when processing malformed traffic or packet captures. The bug, tracked as `CVE-2026-76924` and documented in advisory `wnpa-sec-2026-78`, stems from an out-of-bounds read while formatting a preview of a learned `EncryptionKey` from plaintext Kerberos credential data. Researchers reported that a crafted `EncKrbCredPart`, including traffic delivered over UDP/88, could trigger a heap-buffer-overflow even without a valid keytab, valid key, or successful decryption. The vendor said the issue affects Wireshark versions **4.6.0 through 4.6.7** and **4.4.0 through 4.4.17**, and it has been fixed in **4.6.8** and **4.4.18**. The root cause was that the dissector copied bounded key bytes into retained storage but still read four bytes from the original input buffer, allowing one- to three-byte keys to cause the crash; the fix reformats the preview from a zero-initialized retained buffer after the bounded copy. Wireshark said malformed packets injected onto a network or malicious packet capture files could trigger the vulnerability, and no active exploits are known.
Aug 21, 2026
Wireshark disclosed a denial-of-service vulnerability in its **BUSMASTER file parser** that can cause the application to terminate when a user opens or reads a specially malformed packet capture file. The flaw, tracked as **`CVE-2026-76926`** and **`wnpa-sec-2026-70`**, affects **Wireshark 4.6.0 through 4.6.7** and **4.4.0 through 4.4.17**, as well as **TShark** and software embedding **libwiretap** during automatic format detection. The bug was traced to the BUSMASTER scanner's handling of an unfinished header or time statement containing a newline, which triggered Flex's fatal error path and caused the host process to call `exit(2)` instead of returning a normal parse error. Researchers showed that even minimal malformed input could crash the parser, and Wireshark fixed the issue by returning **`WTAP_ERR_BAD_FILE`** with a diagnostic message rather than terminating the process; the remediation is available in **Wireshark 4.6.8** and **4.4.18**, and the vendor said it was not aware of exploitation in the wild.
Aug 21, 2026