Executive Summary

CVE-2026-6530 is a vulnerability in the DCP-ETSI protocol dissector of Wireshark versions 4.6.0 to 4.6.4 and 4.4.0 to 4.4.14. It is caused by improper handling of malformed packets, specifically a heap buffer overflow in the rs_deinterleave function where Reed-Solomon correction writes beyond the allocated buffer size.

This overflow happens because the loop writes more bytes than the buffer can hold, leading to a heap-based buffer overflow that can cause Wireshark to crash.

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Impact Analysis

This vulnerability can be exploited by an attacker to cause a denial of service by crashing Wireshark when it processes a specially crafted malformed packet or malicious packet trace file.

Additionally, because it is a heap buffer overflow, there is potential for arbitrary code execution, which could lead to further compromise of the system running Wireshark.

Users who open malicious packet capture files without upgrading to patched versions risk having their Wireshark application crash or potentially being exploited for code execution.

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Detection Guidance

This vulnerability is triggered by malformed DCP-ETSI protocol packets that cause Wireshark to crash when dissecting them.

Detection can involve monitoring for crashes or heap-buffer-overflow errors in Wireshark when opening packet capture files containing DCP-ETSI traffic.

A practical approach is to analyze network captures for suspicious or malformed DCP-ETSI packets that could trigger the vulnerability.

Since the vulnerability is in the rs_deinterleave function of the DCP-ETSI dissector, using Wireshark with AddressSanitizer enabled can help detect heap buffer overflows by opening suspect capture files.

No specific commands are provided in the resources, but you can use Wireshark or tshark to open and analyze capture files, for example:

• tshark -r suspicious_capture.pcap -d dcp-etsi
• Running Wireshark with debugging or sanitizers enabled to catch crashes when opening captures containing DCP-ETSI packets.

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Mitigation Strategies

The primary mitigation step is to upgrade Wireshark to a fixed version.

• Upgrade to Wireshark version 4.6.5 or later if you are using the 4.6.x series.
• Upgrade to Wireshark version 4.4.15 or later if you are using the 4.4.x series.

Avoid opening untrusted or suspicious packet capture files containing DCP-ETSI traffic until the upgrade is applied.

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Compliance Impact

The provided information does not specify any direct impact of this vulnerability on compliance with common standards and regulations such as GDPR or HIPAA.

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