Overview
The CVE-2025-5601 is a significant vulnerability that affects Wireshark versions 4.4.0 to 4.4.6 and 4.2.0 to 4.2.12. Wireshark, a widely used network protocol analyzer, is crucial for network troubleshoot, analysis, software and communication protocol development, and education. The vulnerability lies in the column handling crashes, which allows denial of service via packet injection or a crafted capture file. This poses a severe threat to organizations and systems relying on these versions of Wireshark, as it can potentially compromise systems and lead to data leakage.
Vulnerability Summary
CVE ID: CVE-2025-5601
Severity: High (7.8)
Attack Vector: Network
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: None
Impact: Denial of Service, Potential system compromise, and data leakage
Affected Products
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Product | Affected Versions
Wireshark | 4.4.0 to 4.4.6
Wireshark | 4.2.0 to 4.2.12
How the Exploit Works
The vulnerability stems from the column handling in Wireshark. An attacker can inject a specially crafted packet or capture file which causes a system crash when processed by the affected versions of Wireshark. The crash results in a denial of service, but in some cases, it might also lead to potential system compromise or data leakage.
Conceptual Example Code
Here’s a conceptual example of how an attacker might exploit this vulnerability by injecting a malicious packet:
# The attacker crafts a malicious packet
echo -e "\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00" > malicious_packet.bin
# The attacker injects the malicious packet into the network stream
cat malicious_packet.bin | nc target.example.com 443In this example, the attacker crafts a malicious packet (`malicious_packet.bin`) and injects it into the network stream using netcat (`nc`). When this packet is processed by the affected versions of Wireshark, it triggers the vulnerability and causes a system crash, leading to a denial of service.