Application crash via unset Snappy decompression output
Published Nov 21, 2025 · Updated Nov 21, 2025
Access of an uninitialized pointer in Wireshark 4.6.0 and 4.4.0 through 4.4.10 allows attackers to crash the application via Kafka traffic. The Kafka dissector’s decompress_snappy function reports success for Snappy data containing no Xerial chunks without setting its output buffer, and later code asserts on the uninitialized tvbuff. Triggering the crash requires a malformed packet injected onto a monitored network or user interaction to open a malformed packet trace file; the reported consequence is a service interrupt.
Summary
What happened
Access of an uninitialized pointer in Wireshark 4.6.0 and 4.4.0 through 4.4.10 allows attackers to crash the application via Kafka traffic. The Kafka dissector’s decompress_snappy function reports success for Snappy data containing no Xerial chunks without setting its output buffer, and later code asserts on the uninitialized tvbuff. Triggering the crash requires a malformed packet injected onto a monitored network or user interaction to open a malformed packet trace file; the reported consequence is a service interrupt.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2025-13499
- Published
- Nov 21, 2025
- Updated
- Nov 21, 2025
- Vendor
- Wireshark Foundation
- Product
- Wireshark
- Classifications
- CWE-824, T1499.004, T1203
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- unauthenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Nov 21, 2025CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Nov 21, 2025Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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Is a vulnerable build present?
Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.
- Affected versionversion=4.4.0 <4.4.11
- Affected versionversion=4.6.0
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Published CVSS scores
CVSS describes severity. EPSS estimates exploitation probability.
Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.
Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
- Wireshark Kafka dissector fuzz captureproof of concept · demonstrated
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Technologies
Your stack
See the directory against your own environment.
Your stack
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