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Fencer Vulns
medium 6.5

CVE-2020-17498 json

In Wireshark 3.2.0 to 3.2.5, the Kafka protocol dissector could crash.

published 2020-08-13 6 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2020-9446

cvss
6.5
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
2.6%
EPSS 2.6% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 85%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

In Wireshark 3.2.0 to 3.2.5, the Kafka protocol dissector could crash. This was addressed in epan/dissectors/packet-kafka.c by avoiding a double free during LZ4 decompression.

Patch / fix

  • wireshark wireshark 3.2.6
  • wireshark Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 3.2.6-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2020-17498

  • wireshark Ubuntu Pro 20.04 LTS 3.2.3-1ubuntu0.1~esm1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2020-17498

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • wireshark SLE Module for Desktop Applications 15 SP2, SLE Module for Desktop Applications 15 SP1, SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP2 +1 more 3.2.7-3.41.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2020:3166-1

  • wireshark openSUSE Tumbleweed 3.4.8-1.2
  • wireshark openSUSE Leap 15.2 3.2.7-lp152.2.6.1
  • wireshark openSUSE Leap 15.1 3.2.7-lp151.2.15.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:11513-1openSUSE-SU-2020:1882-1openSUSE-SU-2020:1878-1

  • wireshark Alpine 3.24, Alpine 3.23, Alpine 3.22 +10 more 3.2.6-r0

alpine advisories ALPINE-CVE-2020-17498

Alpine secdb © Alpine Linux, from https://secdb.alpinelinux.org via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2020-17498 updated cvss 7.5

wireshark: Kafka protocol dissector could crash (wnpa-sec-2020-10)

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 wireshark Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 wireshark, wireshark-gnome Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 wireshark, wireshark-gnome Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 wireshark, wireshark-cli
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

2.58% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 85% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

  • bugs.wireshark.org https://bugs.wireshark.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=16672 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 6.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD 2.0 4.3 AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P

Classification

Weakness

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.