CVE-2018-14470: The Babel parser in tcpdump before 4.9.3 has a buffer over-read in print-babel.c:babel_print_v2().

Security readout for executives and security teams

CVE-2018-14470 is a denial-of-service risk in tcpdump before 4.9.3. When tcpdump parses Babel routing traffic, a malformed packet can make the parser read past a buffer boundary and potentially crash the packet-capture process. The business impact is loss of monitoring or troubleshooting visibility, not data theft or system takeover based on the provided sources. Exposure is most likely on Linux, macOS, appliances, and monitoring systems running tcpdump before 4.9.3 or vendor packages that include the vulnerable tcpdump code. Risk is higher where tcpdump inspects untrusted network traffic, especially Babel routing protocol traffic. The bundle does not provide complete affected CPE data. Prioritize remediation on network monitoring, troubleshooting, and appliance systems because a crash can disrupt visibility during incidents. This is high severity for availability, but the provided sources do not indicate data compromise, privilege escalation, or confirmed active exploitation. Mitigation focus: Upgrade tcpdump to 4.9.3 or a vendor-fixed package.; Apply relevant OS vendor security updates for Debian, Fedora, openSUSE, Ubuntu, Apple, or NetApp systems.; Limit packet capture on untrusted networks until affected versions are upgraded..

Prepared

May 24, 2026, 09:01 UTC (UTC+00:00)

Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.