EtherealApplication · Ethereal Group

CVE-2005-1456

MEDIUM · 5.0 CVSS v2.0 Published 2005-05-05
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
59/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
Multiple unknown vulnerabilities in the (1) DHCP and (2) Telnet dissectors in Ethereal before 0.10.11 allow remote attackers to cause a denial of service (abort).

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis · moderate confidence

This CVE affects Ethereal (now Wireshark) versions prior to 0.10.11. The DHCP and Telnet protocol dissectors contain vulnerabilities that can be exploited by specially crafted network packets to cause the application to abort, resulting in a denial of service. Attackers can trigger this by sending malicious DHCP or Telnet traffic to a system running Ethereal with packet capture privileges.

MitigationUpgrade Ethereal to version 0.10.11 or later (or migrate to current Wireshark releases). If immediate patching is not feasible, restrict packet capture privileges and monitor for suspicious DHCP/Telnet traffic to minimize exposure.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
EtherealApplication
Affected:= 0.8= 0.8.13= 0.8.14= 0.8.15= 0.8.18= 0.8.19= 0.9= 0.9.1= 0.9.2= 0.9.3= 0.9.4= 0.9.5

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Authentication
None
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
Partial

AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Identify installed Ethereal or Wireshark version
    Run 'ethereal -v' or 'wireshark -v' from command line, or check the application via package manager (dpkg -l | grep -i ethereal or rpm -qa | grep -i ethereal)
    Affected if The version displayed is 0.10.10 or earlier, or matches any of these affected versions: 0.8.x, 0.9.x through 0.9.5
  2. Confirm packet capture functionality is active
    Verify that the user running Ethereal has packet capture privileges. On Linux, check group membership (typically 'pcap' group) using 'groups' command, or verify libpcap is installed and accessible
    Affected if The user has raw packet capture privileges and can capture network traffic with Ethereal
  3. Verify DHCP or Telnet dissectors are enabled
    In the Ethereal GUI, go to Analyze > Enabled Protocols and check if 'DHCP' or 'Telnet' protocols are enabled, or inspect configuration files for dissector settings
    Affected if DHCP or Telnet protocol dissectors are enabled in the capture configuration

A user is affected if running Ethereal version 0.10.10 or earlier with packet capture privileges and DHCP or Telnet dissectors enabled, making the system vulnerable to denial of service from malicious network packets.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

From vendor data
Mitigation available No clean upgrade yet — mitigate in the meantime
Mitigation

Upgrade Ethereal to version 0.10.11 or later (or migrate to current Wireshark releases). If immediate patching is not feasible, restrict packet capture privileges and monitor for suspicious DHCP/Telnet traffic to minimize exposure.

Fix this in Ethereal Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation2.0 h
  • Implementation1.0 h
  • Testing2.0 h
  • Review / QA1.0 h
6.0 hours of engineering $1,060
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Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2005-1456 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.

References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2005-1456 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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