CVE-2025-13499 Overview
CVE-2025-13499 is a denial-of-service vulnerability in the Wireshark Kafka protocol dissector. The flaw affects Wireshark 4.6.0 and versions 4.4.0 through 4.4.10. An attacker can trigger a crash by causing Wireshark to process a malformed Kafka packet capture or live traffic. Exploitation requires user interaction, such as opening a crafted capture file or dissecting attacker-controlled traffic on the wire. The Wireshark project tracks this defect under advisory WNPA-SEC-2025-06 and issue #20823. The vulnerability is classified under CWE-824 (Access of Uninitialized Pointer).
Critical Impact
Successful exploitation crashes the Wireshark process, disrupting active packet analysis workflows and incident response investigations.
Affected Products
- Wireshark 4.6.0
- Wireshark 4.4.0 through 4.4.10
- Kafka protocol dissector component
Discovery Timeline
- 2025-11-21 - CVE-2025-13499 published to NVD
- 2026-06-17 - Last updated in NVD database
Technical Details for CVE-2025-13499
Vulnerability Analysis
The defect resides in the Kafka dissector, one of many protocol parsers that Wireshark loads when analyzing captured traffic. When the dissector processes specific malformed Kafka messages, it accesses an uninitialized pointer and the process terminates. The result is an immediate crash of Wireshark or tshark, ending the analysis session and potentially losing unsaved capture state. The vulnerability does not compromise confidentiality or integrity, but it disrupts availability of the analysis tool itself.
Root Cause
The root cause is an uninitialized pointer access (CWE-824) inside the Kafka dissector logic. Under specific parsing paths triggered by malformed input, the dissector dereferences a pointer that was never assigned a valid memory address. This causes an access violation and terminates the Wireshark process. Full technical details are available in Wireshark Security Advisory WNPA-SEC-2025-06 and GitLab Wireshark Issue #20823.
Attack Vector
The attack vector is local and requires user interaction. An attacker delivers a malicious pcap or pcapng file to an analyst, or injects crafted Kafka traffic onto a network segment being monitored live. When the analyst opens the file or starts a live capture that includes the malformed packets, the Kafka dissector processes the input and Wireshark crashes. No elevated privileges are required to trigger the flaw.
Detection Methods for CVE-2025-13499
Indicators of Compromise
- Unexpected termination of wireshark.exe, wireshark, or tshark processes during capture analysis
- Crash dump files generated by Wireshark referencing the Kafka dissector call stack
- Receipt of untrusted pcap or pcapng files containing Kafka protocol traffic on TCP port 9092
Detection Strategies
- Inventory endpoints running Wireshark 4.6.0 or any release in the 4.4.0 to 4.4.10 range using software asset management data
- Alert on analyst workstations that repeatedly crash the Wireshark process within short time windows
- Review email and file-sharing gateways for inbound capture files originating from untrusted senders
Monitoring Recommendations
- Forward Wireshark and tshark process crash telemetry from analyst workstations to a centralized log platform
- Monitor Windows Error Reporting or Linux coredump events referencing Wireshark binaries
- Track version compliance for the Wireshark package across the analyst fleet to confirm patch adoption
How to Mitigate CVE-2025-13499
Immediate Actions Required
- Upgrade Wireshark to a fixed release as documented in WNPA-SEC-2025-06
- Restrict opening of capture files from untrusted sources on analyst workstations until patches are applied
- Communicate the risk to incident response and network engineering teams that regularly analyze Kafka traffic
Patch Information
The Wireshark Foundation released fixed builds addressing the Kafka dissector crash. Refer to Wireshark Security Advisory WNPA-SEC-2025-06 for the specific fixed versions and to GitLab Wireshark Issue #20823 for the underlying commit history. Update package repositories and redeploy Wireshark across analyst workstations.
Workarounds
- Disable the Kafka dissector in Wireshark via Analyze → Enabled Protocols and unchecking Kafka until the patch is applied
- Analyze suspicious Kafka captures inside an isolated virtual machine that has no access to sensitive data
- Use tshark with an explicit -d disable rule for the Kafka dissector when triaging untrusted captures
# Configuration example: disable the Kafka dissector at the command line
tshark -r suspicious.pcapng --disable-protocol kafka
Disclaimer: This content was generated using AI. While we strive for accuracy, please verify critical information with official sources.
