CVE-2026-3203
📋 TL;DR
A vulnerability in Wireshark's RF4CE Profile protocol dissector causes crashes when processing malicious network packets, leading to denial of service. This affects Wireshark users analyzing RF4CE protocol traffic in versions 4.6.0-4.6.3 and 4.4.0-4.4.13.
💻 Affected Systems
- Wireshark
📦 What is this software?
Wireshark by Wireshark
Wireshark by Wireshark
⚠️ Risk & Real-World Impact
Worst Case
Wireshark crashes repeatedly when analyzing malicious RF4CE traffic, preventing network analysis and potentially disrupting monitoring workflows.
Likely Case
Wireshark crashes when encountering specially crafted RF4CE packets, requiring restart and potentially losing capture data.
If Mitigated
Limited impact if Wireshark is not used for RF4CE protocol analysis or if traffic filtering is implemented.
🎯 Exploit Status
Exploitation requires sending malicious RF4CE packets that the vulnerable Wireshark instance analyzes.
🛠️ Fix & Mitigation
✅ Official Fix
Patch Version: Wireshark 4.6.4 and 4.4.14
Vendor Advisory: https://www.wireshark.org/security/wnpa-sec-2026-07.html
Restart Required: Yes
Instructions:
1. Download latest Wireshark from wireshark.org. 2. Install over existing version. 3. Restart Wireshark.
🔧 Temporary Workarounds
Disable RF4CE protocol dissector
allPrevents Wireshark from parsing RF4CE traffic, avoiding the crash vulnerability.
wireshark -o rf4ce.desegment: FALSE
Filter RF4CE traffic
allUse capture filters to exclude RF4CE traffic from analysis.
not rf4ce
🧯 If You Can't Patch
- Avoid analyzing RF4CE protocol traffic with vulnerable Wireshark versions.
- Use alternative network analysis tools for RF4CE traffic until patching is possible.
🔍 How to Verify
Check if Vulnerable:
Check Wireshark version via Help → About Wireshark or 'wireshark -v' command.Check Version:
wireshark -vVerify Fix Applied:
Verify version is 4.6.4+ or 4.4.14+ and test with RF4CE traffic.📡 Detection & Monitoring
Log Indicators:
- Wireshark crash logs, segmentation fault errors in system logs
Network Indicators:
- RF4CE protocol traffic to monitoring systems
SIEM Query:
EventID: 1000 Application Error for wireshark.exe OR 'segmentation fault' AND 'wireshark'