The vulnerability is a heap‑based buffer overflow triggered by malformed SPDY protocol packets in Wireshark versions 4.6.0 to 4.6.8 and 4.4.0 to 4.4.18. The overflow corrupts memory and causes the dissector to crash, leading to a denial of service. The weakness is identified as CWE‑122 and CWE‑787. Consequently, an attacker that can influence the data parsed by Wireshark can cause the application to terminate unexpectedly, disabling traffic analysis and potentially disrupting monitoring workflows.

The issue affects the Wireshark packet‑sniffing tool from the Wireshark Foundation. All Wireshark releases in the 4.6 series between 4.6.0 and 4.6.8, as well as the 4.4 series from 4.4.0 to 4.4.18, are vulnerable. Users running these builds on any platform where Wireshark processes SPDY traffic are impacted.

The CVSS score of 8.1 indicates high severity with a negligible EPSS score (<1%), meaning real‑world exploitation is unlikely at present. The vulnerability is not listed in CISA's KEV catalog. Attackers would need to provide crafted SPDY packets or negotiate SPDY traffic with a Wireshark instance; the vector is inferred to be network‑based since the overflow occurs during protocol parsing, but the description does not explicitly state whether remote exploitation is possible. The confidence level for remote exploitability is low due to the limited EPSS and lack of public exploitation reports.