CVE-2024-4855VulnerabilityPublished 14 May 2024Updated 27 Mar 2026

CVE-2024-4855: Wireshark Foundation editcap · Use After Free

Affects Wireshark Foundation editcapSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 3.6 Low.

Data as of 25 Oct 2026, 19:02 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

3.6Low

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

EPSS: 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 34% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

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

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

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

Attack Vector: Local: The vulnerable component is not bound to the network stack and the attacker’s path is via read/write/execute capabilities. Either: the attacker exploits the vulnerability by accessing the target system locally (e.g., keyboard, console), or remotely (e.g., SSH); or the attacker relies on User Interaction by another person to perform actions required to exploit the vulnerability (e.g., tricking a legitimate user into opening a malicious document).
Attack Complexity: High: A successful attack depends on conditions beyond the attacker's control. That is, a successful attack cannot be accomplished at will, but requires the attacker to invest in some measurable amount of effort in preparation or execution against the vulnerable component before a successful attack can be expected. For example, a successful attack may require an attacker to: gather knowledge about the environment in which the vulnerable target/component exists; prepare the target environment to improve exploit reliability; or inject themselves into the logical network path between the target and the resource requested by the victim in order to read and/or modify network communications (e.g., a man in the middle attack).
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: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within 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 14 May 2024
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 2026-10-25.

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

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
Wiresharkwireshark/editcap`pkg:deb/wireshark/editcap`Other threats	Affected =4.2.0 =4.0.0 =3.6.0	Fixed in–

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-2024-4855, organizations should: 1) Monitor Wireshark Foundation announcements and apply patches promptly once available to affected editcap versions. 2) Avoid processing capture files from untrusted or unauthenticated sources to reduce exposure to crafted malicious files. 3) Implement strict access controls to limit who can run editcap and process capture files, minimizing the risk of accidental or intentional exploitation. 4) Use sandboxing or containerization techniques to isolate editcap execution environments, preventing crashes from affecting broader systems. 5) Incorporate input validation and scanning of capture files before processing to detect anomalies or known malicious patterns. 6) Educate users about the risks of opening or processing suspicious capture files and enforce policies for secure handling of network data. 7) Consider alternative tools or updated versions with fixed vulnerabilities for critical workflows until patches are released.

Description

Use after free issue in editcap could cause denial of service via crafted capture file

Impact

The primary impact of CVE-2024-4855 is denial of service through application crashes when processing maliciously crafted capture files with editcap. This can disrupt network analysis workflows, forensic investigations, or automated processing pipelines relying on editcap, potentially delaying incident response or analysis activities. Since the vulnerability requires local access and user interaction, remote exploitation is unlikely, reducing the risk to network-facing systems. However, in environments where multiple users have access to editcap or where capture files are shared and processed routinely, an attacker could cause repeated crashes or instability, impacting operational efficiency. There is no direct risk to data confidentiality or integrity, and no privilege escalation vector is present. The low CVSS score reflects these limited impacts. Nonetheless, organizations relying heavily on Wireshark tools should consider the operational impact of potential DoS conditions and plan accordingly.

CWE-416Use After Free (opens in a new tab)
Variant weaknessLikelihood of exploit: HighCWE Top 25 (2025): #7
The product reuses or references memory after it has been freed. At some point afterward, the memory may be allocated again and saved in another pointer, while the original pointer references a location somewhere within the new allocation. Any operations using the original pointer are no longer valid because the memory "belongs" to the code that operates on the new pointer.
Architecture and Design · Language Selection
Choose a language that provides automatic memory management.
Implementation · Attack Surface Reduction
When freeing pointers, be sure to set them to NULL once they are freed. However, the utilization of multiple or complex data structures may lower the usefulness of this strategy.
OWASP Cheat Sheets
XML Security (opens in a new tab)
Mass Assignment (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V13.3.1 (opens in a new tab)
V5.1.4 (opens in a new tab)
V5.1.3 (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

Community reviews

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 27 Mar 2026, 14:47 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-416

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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