This vulnerability (CVE-2026-6535) affects the Wireshark network protocol analyzer in versions 4.6.0 through 4.6.4 and 4.4.0 through 4.4.14. It is caused by improper control of sequential memory allocation within the zlib decompression functionality of the dissection engine. This flaw can lead to a crash of the application, resulting in denial of service. The CVSS 3.1 base score is 5.5 (medium), with attack vector local, low attack complexity, no privileges required, user interaction required, and impact limited to availability. No official fix or patch has been documented in the provided data.

Successful exploitation causes a denial of service by crashing the Wireshark application during zlib decompression of network data. The impact is limited to availability disruption of the affected software. There is no confidentiality or integrity impact reported. No known active exploitation has been observed.

Patch status is not yet confirmed — check the Wireshark Foundation advisory for current remediation guidance. Until an official fix is released, users should avoid processing untrusted or malformed network captures that could trigger the vulnerability. Monitor official Wireshark channels for updates and apply patches promptly once available.