WiresharkApplication
CVE-2016-4078
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 · uneditedThe IEEE 802.11 dissector in Wireshark 1.12.x before 1.12.11 and 2.0.x before 2.0.3 does not properly restrict element lists, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (deep recursion and application crash) via a crafted packet, related to epan/dissectors/packet-capwap.c and epan/dissectors/packet-ieee80211.c.
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 · high confidenceThe IEEE 802.11 dissector in Wireshark 1.12.x before 1.12.11 and 2.0.x before 2.0.3 fails to properly restrict element lists within crafted 802.11 packets, leading to deep recursion that causes the application to crash (denial of service). The vulnerability exists in packet-ieee80211.c with related code in packet-capwap.c.
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
WiresharkApplication
= 1.12.0= 1.12.1= 1.12.2= 1.12.3= 1.12.4= 1.12.5= 1.12.6= 1.12.7= 1.12.8= 1.12.9= 1.12.10= 2.0.0CVSS 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
- High
- Privileges
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
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 checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Check installed Wireshark versionRun 'wireshark --version' or 'tshark --version' to see the exact version number of your Wireshark installationAffected if Version is 1.12.0 through 1.12.10, or 2.0.0 through 2.0.2 (these are the vulnerable versions)
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Identify Wireshark 1.12.x branchIf the version starts with 1.12, note the final number after the decimal pointAffected if The version is 1.12.x where x is any number from 0 to 10 (versions before 1.12.11)
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Identify Wireshark 2.0.x branchIf the version starts with 2.0, note the final number after the decimal pointAffected if The version is 2.0.x where x is 0, 1, or 2 (versions before 2.0.3)
Your environment is affected if Wireshark version is 1.12.0-1.12.10 or 2.0.0-2.0.2, since these versions contain the vulnerable IEEE 802.11 dissector code that can crash via deep recursion when processing crafted 802.11 packets.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
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 dataUpgrade Wireshark to version 1.12.11 or 2.0.3 or later. Until the upgrade is applied, avoid opening untrusted packet capture files or live traffic from untrusted sources that could contain malicious 802.11 frames.
Fix this in Wireshark
Scoped from the published advisory
- Consultation1.0 h
- Implementation1.0 h
- Testing2.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $1,376.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2016-4078 — 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 sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2016-4078 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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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.
- 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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