Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:HSummary
CVE-2026-15170 is a medium-severity Heap-based Buffer Overflow (CWE-122) vulnerability in Wireshark Wireshark. Its CVSS base score is 5.5 (Medium).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Application or System Exploitation (T1499.004); ranked at the 5th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog; a public proof-of-concept is referenced.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SC-7 (Boundary Protection) and SI-2 (Flaw Remediation) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2026-42413
Vulnerability Data
Z39.50 protocol dissector crash in Wireshark 4.6.0 to 4.6.6 and 4.4.0 to 4.4.16 allows denial of service
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
The vulnerability is a crash in the Z39.50 protocol dissector, directly enabling an application exhaustion/denial of service via crafted network traffic.
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Control response
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Boundary protection at network ingress/egress can block or rate-limit untrusted Z39.50 traffic before it reaches the vulnerable Wireshark instance.
Timely application of vendor-supplied patches eliminates the heap-based buffer overflow (CWE-122) that triggers the Z39.50 dissector crash.
Least-functionality principle restricts installation or execution of protocol analyzers on production systems, reducing the attack surface for malformed Z39.50 packets.
Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Secure-development practices directly require bounds checking and safe memory handling that prevent heap overflows.
Vulnerability scanning and recording can discover heap-overflow flaws but does not prevent their introduction in code.
Timely patching removes known heap-overflow instances after they exist.
Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Security testing in development and acceptance can detect heap overflows before release.
Secure development lifecycle mandates practices that reduce the likelihood of introducing heap overflows.
Application security requirements can specify bounds-checking and safe memory APIs that mitigate heap overflows.
Secure architecture and engineering principles include memory-safety and input-validation controls that address heap overflows.
Secure coding standards directly prescribe techniques (safe functions, bounds checks) that prevent heap-based buffer overflows.
Change management ensures controlled deployment of fixes for discovered heap-overflow vulnerabilities.