Security readout for executives and security teams
Plain-English summary
CVE-2021-4181 can make vulnerable Wireshark versions crash when processing certain Sysdig Event traffic or capture files. This is an availability issue, not a data theft or code execution issue in the supplied sources. The main business risk is disruption to packet analysis workflows, incident response, or monitoring systems that rely on Wireshark.
Executive priority
Treat as high priority for security operations and incident response environments. It does not indicate compromise by itself, but it can disrupt investigations and monitoring when analysts process attacker-controlled traffic or captures.
Technical view
The issue is a crash in Wireshark's Sysdig Event dissector. The source bundle describes denial of service via packet injection or a crafted capture file. Affected entries identify Wireshark 3.6.0 and 3.4.x; the title references 3.4.0 through 3.4.10, while structured affected data says before 3.4.10.
Likely exposure
Exposure is most likely where analysts, tooling, or monitoring workflows process untrusted packet captures or live traffic containing Sysdig Event data using affected Wireshark releases.
Exploitation context
The CVSS vector is network-accessible, low-complexity, no privileges, and high availability impact. KEV is false in the provided bundle, and no cited source in the bundle establishes active exploitation.
Researcher notes
Evidence supports a denial-of-service crash in the Sysdig Event dissector. The source bundle has a minor version-range inconsistency for 3.4.10, so researchers should confirm exact vulnerable and fixed releases from the Wireshark advisory and downstream vendor packages.
Mitigation direction
- Inventory Wireshark installations and package versions across analyst and monitoring systems.
- Prioritize updates for Wireshark 3.6.0 and affected 3.4.x installations.
- Use vendor or distribution advisories for exact fixed package versions.
- Avoid opening untrusted capture files on vulnerable Wireshark versions.
- Restrict vulnerable systems from processing untrusted live traffic where feasible.
Validation and detection
- Check installed Wireshark versions against the affected ranges in the source bundle.
- Confirm remediation using Wireshark, Debian, Fedora, Gentoo, Oracle, or other vendor advisories.
- Review packet-analysis workflows for untrusted capture-file ingestion.
- Verify vulnerable hosts no longer run affected Wireshark builds after patching.
Public sources used
Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.
Conservative CVE-to-ATT&CK context
These mappings and lookup hints may be relevant to the vulnerability behavior, CWE, affected product, or exposure path. Glexia-inferred context is not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, CWE, or CVE Program mapping.
ATT&CK lookup starting points
Use these exact CWE pages and searches to review the Glexia ATT&CK library from this CVE's weakness and description context.
CVE-2021-4181 mapping review
Open the CVE-to-ATT&CK bridge for reviewed, inferred, or future official mappings tied to this CVE.
Open ATT&CK lookup- Severity
- High
- CVSS
- 7.5 (3.1)
- Known Exploited
- No
- Published
Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CNA and ADP enrichment extracted from CVE v5
These fields come from the CVE record and ADP containers, not from Glexia's Take. They preserve time-varying source decisions such as CISA SSVC, KEV status, CVSS metrics, and provider references.
CVSS vector scores
1 official scoreWe collect every scored CVSS vector available in the official CNA and ADP containers. When more than one version is present, the table keeps the source vectors side by side instead of collapsing them into the highest score.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H3.93.6Primary CVE scoreVulnerability scoring details
Base CVSS 3.1 score
7.5HighVector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Source materials
- CVE List V5 sourceCVE List V5
- https://www.wireshark.org/security/wnpa-sec-2021-21.htmlCVE reference
- https://gitlab.com/wireshark/wireshark/-/merge_requests/5429CVE reference
- https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/cves/-/blob/master/2021/CVE-2021-4181.jsonCVE reference
- FEDORA-2022-1daf93c51dCVE reference · vendor-advisory
- FEDORA-2022-30411cb3c4CVE reference · vendor-advisory
- [debian-lts-announce] 20220331 [SECURITY] [DLA 2967-1] wireshark security updateCVE reference · mailing-list
- https://www.oracle.com/security-alerts/cpuapr2022.htmlCVE reference
- GLSA-202210-04CVE reference · vendor-advisory
- https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2024/09/msg00049.htmlCVE reference
Products and packages named in the record
CWE details
CWE links open Glexia weakness intelligence pages with official CWE context, developer remediation guidance, and related CVE mappings.