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EtherealApplication · Ethereal Group

CVE-2005-3249

MEDIUM · 6.4 CVSS v2.0 Published 2005-10-27
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
73/100
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
Unspecified vulnerability in the WSP dissector in Ethereal 0.10.1 to 0.10.12 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service or corrupt memory via unknown vectors that cause Ethereal to free an invalid pointer.

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

A memory corruption vulnerability exists in the WSP (Wireless Session Protocol) dissector of Ethereal versions 0.10.1 through 0.10.12. The vulnerability allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service or corrupt heap memory by triggering the application to free an invalid pointer during packet dissection.

MitigationUpgrade Ethereal/Wireshark to a version beyond 0.10.12, or apply the vendor patch for this specific WSP dissector vulnerability. Until patched, exercise caution when dissecting capture files from untrusted sources.

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:= 0.10.1= 0.10.2= 0.10.3= 0.10.4= 0.10.5= 0.10.6= 0.10.7= 0.10.8= 0.10.9= 0.10.10= 0.10.11= 0.10.12

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
Partial
Availability
Partial

AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:P/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. Check if Ethereal is installed
    Run 'ethereal -v' or 'which ethereal' to see if the application exists on the system
    Affected if Ethereal is installed and the version is between 0.10.1 and 0.10.12 inclusive
  2. Verify the exact Ethereal version
    Run 'ethereal -v' and look at the version number in the output
    Affected if The version displayed is 0.10.1, 0.10.2, 0.10.3, 0.10.4, 0.10.5, 0.10.6, 0.10.7, 0.10.8, 0.10.9, 0.10.10, 0.10.11, or 0.10.12
  3. Confirm WSP dissector availability
    Check if WSP dissector is present: look in Ethereal's 'Analyze > Enabled Protocols' or check for wsp dissector files in the installation directory
    Affected if WSP dissector is enabled and available for dissecting packet captures

You are affected if Ethereal version 0.10.1 through 0.10.12 is installed and the WSP dissector is enabled or can be used to dissect capture files.

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/Wireshark to a version beyond 0.10.12, or apply the vendor patch for this specific WSP dissector vulnerability. Until patched, exercise caution when dissecting capture files from untrusted sources.

Fix this in Ethereal Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation1.0 h
  • Implementation2.0 h
  • Testing2.0 h
  • Review / QA1.0 h
6.0 hours of engineering $1,040
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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-2005-3249 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
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data