A high-severity vulnerability has been discovered in Wireshark’s Kafka dissector, potentially leading to a denial-of-service (DoS) condition. Tracked as CVE-2025-13499, this flaw affects Wireshark versions 4.6.0 and 4.4.0 through 4.4.10. This article provides a comprehensive overview of the vulnerability, its potential impact, and steps you can take to mitigate the risk.
Overview
CVE-2025-13499 describes a crash within the Kafka dissector of Wireshark. This vulnerability can be triggered when Wireshark attempts to analyze a malformed or specially crafted Kafka packet. Exploiting this flaw could lead to the Wireshark application crashing, effectively causing a denial of service for anyone relying on it for network analysis.
Technical Details
The vulnerability lies within the code responsible for parsing Kafka messages. Specifically, a flaw in the way the dissector handles certain unexpected or invalid data structures within a Kafka packet can lead to a memory access violation or other error condition, causing the application to terminate unexpectedly. The specific code area involved is within the Kafka dissector’s handling of [mention specific data structure or function if more details are available from the references – replace this placeholder with real info]. More detailed information can be found in the issue report and security advisory (see References).
CVSS Analysis
The vulnerability has been assigned a CVSS score of 7.8 (HIGH). This score reflects the potential for remote exploitation and the impact of a denial-of-service condition. The CVSS vector string [Replace with example vector string if known. Otherwise remove this entire sentence] would further detail the exploitability and impact metrics.
Possible Impact
A successful exploit of CVE-2025-13499 could have the following consequences:
- Denial of Service: The most immediate impact is the crashing of the Wireshark application. This prevents network administrators and security analysts from using Wireshark to monitor and troubleshoot network traffic.
- Interrupted Network Analysis: If Wireshark is being used for real-time monitoring or incident response, the crash can disrupt these activities, potentially delaying the identification and resolution of critical network issues.
Mitigation and Patch Steps
The most effective way to mitigate this vulnerability is to upgrade to a patched version of Wireshark. The following steps are recommended:
- Upgrade Wireshark: Update to the latest version of Wireshark. Versions *later* than 4.6.0 and 4.4.10 contain the fix for CVE-2025-13499.
- Verify Version: After upgrading, verify that you are running a version of Wireshark that includes the fix. Check the Wireshark release notes for confirmation.
