Process termination via malformed BUSMASTER header
Published Aug 19, 2026 · Updated Aug 20, 2026
Denial of service in Wireshark 4.6.0 through 4.6.7 and 4.4.0 through 4.4.17 allows remote attackers to crash the process via a crafted BUSMASTER file. In wiretap/busmaster_scanner.l, a newline in an unfinished BUSMASTER header or time statement reaches Flex's fatal-error path, and the generated scanner calls exit(2) instead of returning a normal parse error. Exploitation requires getting a victim or automation to open attacker-supplied capture data, after which Wireshark, TShark, or a process embedding libwiretap exits without reported confidentiality or integrity impact.
Summary
What happened
Denial of service in Wireshark 4.6.0 through 4.6.7 and 4.4.0 through 4.4.17 allows remote attackers to crash the process via a crafted BUSMASTER file. In wiretap/busmaster_scanner.l, a newline in an unfinished BUSMASTER header or time statement reaches Flex's fatal-error path, and the generated scanner calls exit(2) instead of returning a normal parse error. Exploitation requires getting a victim or automation to open attacker-supplied capture data, after which Wireshark, TShark, or a process embedding libwiretap exits without reported confidentiality or integrity impact.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2026-76926
- Published
- Aug 19, 2026
- Updated
- Aug 20, 2026
- Vendor
- Wireshark Foundation
- Product
- Wireshark
- Classifications
- CWE-617
- Attack vector
- network
- Privileges
- unauthenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Aug 19, 2026CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Aug 20, 2026Record 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 <4.4.18
- Affected versionversion=4.6.0 <4.6.8
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
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Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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