CVE-2023-1992VulnerabilityPublished 12 Apr 2023Updated 3 Nov 2025

CVE-2023-1992: Buffer over-read in Wireshark

Affects WiresharkSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 6.3 Medium : upgrade to 4.0.5 or 3.6.13 when convenient.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 06:26 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

6.3Medium

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 4.6% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 91% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
Patch: Available – fixed in 4.0.5, 3.6.13

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: Required
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: Low
Integrity: Low
Availability: Low

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Network: The vulnerable component is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed, up to and including the entire Internet. Such a vulnerability is often termed 'remotely exploitable' and can be thought of as an attack being exploitable at the protocol level one or more network hops away (e.g., across one or more routers).
Attack Complexity: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: None: The attacker is unauthorized prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files to carry out an attack.
User Interaction: Required: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability requires a user to take some action before the vulnerability can be exploited.
Scope: Unchanged: An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.
Confidentiality: Low: There is some loss of confidentiality. Access to some restricted information is obtained, but the attacker does not have control over what information is obtained, or the amount or kind of loss is limited. The information disclosure does not cause a direct, serious loss to the impacted component.
Integrity: Low: Modification of data is possible, but the attacker does not have control over the consequence of a modification, or the amount of modification is limited. The data modification does not have a direct, serious impact on the impacted component.
Availability: Low: Performance is reduced or there are interruptions in resource availability. Even if repeated exploitation of the vulnerability is possible, the attacker does not have the ability to completely deny service to legitimate users. The resources in the impacted component are either partially available all of the time, or fully available only some of the time, but overall there is no direct, serious consequence to the impacted component.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 12 Apr 2023
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 2026-10-26.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponised: Public exploit code exists in Metasploit or Exploit-DB, or CISA SSVC reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

Upgrade wireshark/wireshark to 4.0.5 or 3.6.13.

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
GitHubwireshark/wireshark`pkg:github/wireshark/wireshark`Other threats	Affected <3.6.13 <4.0.5	Fixed in 3.6.13 4.0.5

Check your own hosts for these packages with threat-finder (opens in a new tab), our free open-source scanner.

AI-suggested

To mitigate CVE-2023-1992, European organizations should: 1) Immediately upgrade Wireshark to versions 3.6.13, 4.0.5, or later where the vulnerability is patched. 2) Implement strict policies to avoid opening capture files from untrusted or unknown sources. 3) Use sandboxing or containerization techniques to isolate Wireshark processes, limiting the impact of potential crashes. 4) Educate users and analysts about the risks of handling unverified capture files and encourage verification of file provenance. 5) Employ network segmentation and monitoring to detect and block malicious RPCoRDMA traffic that could trigger the vulnerability. 6) Integrate automated patch management to ensure timely updates of Wireshark and related tools. 7) Consider alternative analysis tools or offline analysis environments for suspicious capture files. 8) Maintain robust incident response plans to quickly recover from potential denial of service events affecting network analysis capabilities.

Description

RPCoRDMA dissector crash in Wireshark 4.0.0 to 4.0.4 and 3.6.0 to 3.6.12 allows denial of service via packet injection or crafted capture file

Impact

For European organizations, the primary impact of CVE-2023-1992 is operational disruption due to denial of service when Wireshark crashes upon processing maliciously crafted packets or capture files. This can hinder network monitoring, incident response, and forensic investigations, potentially delaying detection and mitigation of other security incidents. The buffer over-read may also lead to limited information disclosure, affecting confidentiality. Organizations relying heavily on Wireshark for real-time network analysis or security operations centers (SOCs) could experience reduced visibility and increased risk exposure. While no privilege escalation or remote code execution is involved, the disruption of critical security tools can indirectly impact the integrity and availability of network defenses. The requirement for user interaction means that social engineering or inadvertent opening of malicious files is a likely exploitation vector. Given the widespread use of Wireshark in European enterprises, government agencies, and critical infrastructure sectors, the vulnerability could affect a broad range of organizations, especially those with less mature patch management or security awareness programs.

CWE-400Uncontrolled Resource Consumption (opens in a new tab)
Class weaknessLikelihood of exploit: High
The product does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource.
MITRE discourages mapping vulnerabilities to this broad entry; the root cause is usually a more specific weakness.
Architecture and Design
Design throttling mechanisms into the system architecture. The best protection is to limit the amount of resources that an unauthorized user can cause to be expended. A strong authentication and access control model will help prevent such attacks from occurring in the first place.
Architecture and Design
Mitigation of resource exhaustion attacks requires that the target system either: recognizes the attack and denies that user further access for a given amount of time, or; uniformly throttles all requests in order to make it more difficult to consume resources more quickly than they can again be freed.
Architecture and Design
Ensure that protocols have specific limits of scale placed on them.
OWASP Cheat Sheets
File Upload (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V12.1.1 (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
XML Ping of the Death (opens in a new tab)
Regular Expression Exponential Blowup (opens in a new tab)
Sustained Client Engagement (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 4 Nov 2025, 00:08 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-400

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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