CVE-2026-3201
wireshark: Improperly Controlled Sequential Memory Allocation in Wireshark
Severity
ModerateRed Hat Product Security
CVSS 3.1
Review impact separately from score.
Published · February 25, 2026
Updated · July 9, 2026
Description
A flaw was found in the USB HID dissector in Wireshark. This issue occurs when malformed packets are decoded from a pcap file or the network, causing an excessive consumption of memory, resulting in a denial of service.
Statement
This issue will cause a crash in Wireshark with no other security impact. Also, this flaw can only be exploited when a malformed pcap file is processed. Due to these reasons, this vulnerability has been rated with a moderate severity.
CVSS score applicability
The CVSS score(s) listed for this vulnerability do not reflect the associated product's status, and are included for informational purposes to better understand the severity of this vulnerability.
Mitigation
If the USB HID protocol dissector is not being used, it can be disabled via the "Enabled Protocols" dialog box in the Wireshark GUI application. This will also disable the protocol dissector when using "tshark", the command line tool.
See the links below for instructions to disable a protocol in Wireshark, specifically the "Control Protocol Dissection" section and the "disabled_protos" configuration file option.
https://www.wireshark.org/docs/wsug_html_chunked/ChCustProtocolDissectionSection.html https://www.wireshark.org/docs/wsug_html_chunked/ChAppFilesConfigurationSection.html
CVSS / CWE
CVSS 3.1 · 5.5CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CWE-1325 · Improperly Controlled Sequential Memory Allocation