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Fencer Intel
high 7.5

CVE-2018-14438 json

In Wireshark through 2.6.2, the create_app_running_mutex function in wsutil/file_util.c calls SetSecurityDescriptorDacl to set a NULL DACL,…

published 8y ago modified 4mo ago also EUVD-2018-6355

cvss
7.5
version 3.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
1.2%
EPSS 1.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 68%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

In Wireshark through 2.6.2, the create_app_running_mutex function in wsutil/file_util.c calls SetSecurityDescriptorDacl to set a NULL DACL, which allows attackers to modify the access control arbitrarily.

Patch / fix

  • wireshark Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 2.6.3-1~ubuntu14.04.1
  • wireshark Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 2.6.3-1~ubuntu16.04.1
  • wireshark Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 2.6.3-1~ubuntu18.04.1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2018-14438

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

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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-2018-14438 updated cvss 5.6

wireshark: Improper Access Control in create_app_running_mutex function in wsutil/file_util.c

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 wireshark, wireshark-gnome Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 wireshark, wireshark-gnome Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 wireshark, wireshark-cli
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

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

Exploit prediction

1.18% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 68% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.0 7.5 CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
NVD 2.0 5.0 AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:P/A:N

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-20 Improper Input Validation

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.