The vulnerability is an improperly controlled sequential memory allocation in Wireshark’s WebSocket protocol dissector. Parsing crafted WebSocket frames can trigger a buffer mismanagement that causes the application to crash, resulting in denial of service. The weakness is classified as CWE-1325 and CWE-237.

Affected products are Wireshark from the Wireshark Foundation. Versions 4.6.0 through 4.6.4 and 4.4.0 through 4.4.14 are impacted. Users running these builds should be aware that any traffic containing malicious WebSocket packets could destabilize the network analyzer.

The CVSS score of 5.5 indicates moderate severity, while the EPSS score of < 1% indicates a very low but non‑zero exploitation probability, suggesting limited publicly observable exploitation risk. The vulnerability is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog. The likely attack vector is a malicious WebSocket payload sent over a network that Wireshark monitors, which would cause the dissector to crash. Because no remote code execution or elevated privileges are involved, the risk is confined to denial of service affecting the analyst’s environment rather than compromising the host system.