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Fencer Intel
medium 6.8

CVE-2011-0538 json

Wireshark 1.2.0 through 1.2.14, 1.4.0 through 1.4.3, and 1.5.0 frees an uninitialized pointer during processing of a .pcap file in the pcap…

published 2011-02-08 15 y ago modified 2026-06-16 4 mo ago also EUVD-2011-0556

cvss
6.8
version 2.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
7.5%
EPSS 7.5% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 94%
public exploits
1
Exploit-DB

Summary

Wireshark 1.2.0 through 1.2.14, 1.4.0 through 1.4.3, and 1.5.0 frees an uninitialized pointer during processing of a .pcap file in the pcap-ng format, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (memory corruption) or possibly have unspecified other impact via a malformed file.

Patch / fix

  • wireshark Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 1.4.3-3

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2011-0538

  • wireshark RHEL 4 1.0.15-2.el4
  • wireshark RHEL 5 1.0.15-1.el5_6.4
  • wireshark-gnome RHEL 4 1.0.15-2.el4
  • wireshark-gnome RHEL 5 1.0.15-1.el5_6.4
  • wireshark RHEL 6 1.2.15-1.el6_0.1
  • wireshark-gnome RHEL 6 1.2.15-1.el6_0.1

red hat advisories RHSA-2011:0370RHSA-2011:0369

  • wireshark openSUSE Tumbleweed 2.2.2-1.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:10199-1

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2011-0538 updated cvss 1.9

Wireshark: memory corruption when reading a malformed pcap file (upstream bug #5652)

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (v. 5.6.z server) wireshark 1.0.15-1.el5_6.4, wireshark-gnome 1.0.15-1.el5_6.4 Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS version 4 wireshark 1.0.15-2.el4, wireshark-gnome 1.0.15-2.el4
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2011:0370
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop (v. 6) wireshark 1.2.15-1.el6_0.1, wireshark-gnome 1.2.15-1.el6_0.1 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop Optional (v. 6) wireshark 1.2.15-1.el6_0.1, wireshark-gnome 1.2.15-1.el6_0.1
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2011:0369
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop version 4 wireshark 1.0.15-2.el4, wireshark-gnome 1.0.15-2.el4 Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES version 4 wireshark 1.0.15-2.el4, wireshark-gnome 1.0.15-2.el4
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2011:0370
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (v. 6) wireshark 1.2.15-1.el6_0.1, wireshark-gnome 1.2.15-1.el6_0.1 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server Optional (v. 6) wireshark 1.2.15-1.el6_0.1, wireshark-gnome 1.2.15-1.el6_0.1 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation (v. 6) wireshark 1.2.15-1.el6_0.1, wireshark-gnome 1.2.15-1.el6_0.1 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation Optional (v. 6) wireshark 1.2.15-1.el6_0.1, wireshark-gnome 1.2.15-1.el6_0.1
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2011:0369
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS version 4 wireshark 1.0.15-2.el4, wireshark-gnome 1.0.15-2.el4
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2011:0370

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Timeline

  1. First public exploit (EDB-35314)
  2. Published

Exploit prediction

7.51% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 94% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

Exploits and checks

  • EDB-35314 Wireshark 1.4.3 - '.pcap' Memory Corruption remote, 2011-02-03
  • bugs.wireshark.org https://bugs.wireshark.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=5652 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified
  • securityfocus.com http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/46167 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 2.0 6.8 AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-119 Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.