Security readout for executives and security teams
Plain-English summary
This Wireshark flaw can crash the application when it processes certain RFC 7468 data, either from live network traffic or a crafted capture file. It is mainly an availability risk: analysts may lose tool access or sessions, but the provided sources do not show data theft, privilege escalation, or confirmed active exploitation.
Executive priority
Prioritize remediation where Wireshark supports incident response, SOC analysis, or network monitoring. The business risk is operational disruption rather than breach impact, but tool crashes during investigations can delay response work.
Technical view
CVE-2021-4182 is a denial-of-service crash in Wireshark's RFC 7468 dissector. The source bundle lists Wireshark 3.6.0 and 3.4.x builds as affected, with CVSS 3.1 score 7.5, AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H. Impact is availability only according to the provided vector.
Likely exposure
Exposure is most likely on analyst workstations, packet-capture servers, or systems that open untrusted capture files. Organizations using Wireshark 3.6.0 or affected 3.4.x packages should treat this as relevant, including distribution-packaged or bundled copies.
Exploitation context
The CVE description says denial of service is possible through packet injection or a crafted capture file. The bundle marks CISA KEV as false and provides no cited evidence of active exploitation or public weaponization.
Researcher notes
The bundle contains a minor version-boundary ambiguity between the title and affected metadata for 3.4.x. Treat vendor advisories as authoritative when confirming fixed versions. No CWE is listed, and the provided evidence supports availability impact only.
Mitigation direction
- Update Wireshark using Wireshark or operating-system vendor security guidance.
- Prioritize systems processing untrusted live traffic or third-party capture files.
- Avoid opening untrusted capture files on affected versions until remediated.
- Check downstream advisories for packaged Wireshark updates in Fedora, Gentoo, Debian, and Oracle environments.
Validation and detection
- Inventory Wireshark versions on analyst desktops, jump boxes, and capture-processing hosts.
- Flag Wireshark 3.6.0 and listed affected 3.4.x versions for remediation review.
- Confirm installed packages came from updated vendor or distribution repositories.
- Review crash reports from Wireshark when handling RFC 7468 or certificate-like capture content.
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-2021-4182 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-2021-20.htmlCVE reference
- https://gitlab.com/wireshark/wireshark/-/issues/17801CVE reference
- https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/cves/-/blob/master/2021/CVE-2021-4182.jsonCVE reference
- FEDORA-2022-1daf93c51dCVE reference · vendor-advisory
- FEDORA-2022-30411cb3c4CVE reference · vendor-advisory
- 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.