CVE-2026-7379
Published: 30 April 2026
Summary
CVE-2026-7379 is a medium-severity Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime (CWE-401) 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 5.7th 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 are NIST 800-53 SC-6 (Resource Availability) and SI-2 (Flaw Remediation).
Threat & Defense at a Glance
Threat & Defense Details
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5)AI
Requires timely identification, reporting, and correction of the memory leak flaw in sharkd via patching Wireshark to unaffected versions.
Monitors and protects against resource exhaustion, directly mitigating the denial-of-service impact from the sharkd memory leak.
Implements denial-of-service protections that limit the effects of resource depletion attacks exploiting the memory leak vulnerability.
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Memory leak in sharkd enables exploitation to crash the process or exhaust resources, directly mapping to application/system exploitation for DoS.
NVD Description
Memory leak in sharkd 4.6.0 to 4.6.4 and 4.4.0 to 4.4.14 allows denial of service
Deeper analysisAI
CVE-2026-7379 is a memory leak vulnerability (CWE-401) in the sharkd component of Wireshark, affecting versions 4.6.0 through 4.6.4 and 4.4.0 through 4.4.14. Published on 2026-04-30, it carries a CVSS v3.1 base score of 5.5 (AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H), indicating a medium-severity issue that enables denial of service through resource exhaustion.
A local attacker can exploit this vulnerability with low complexity and no required privileges, though user interaction is necessary. By triggering the memory leak, the attacker can cause significant availability impact, such as crashing the sharkd process or depleting system resources, without compromising confidentiality or integrity.
Mitigation details are available in Wireshark's security advisory WNPA-SEC-2026-47 at https://www.wireshark.org/security/wnpa-sec-2026-47.html and the related GitLab work item at https://gitlab.com/wireshark/wireshark/-/work_items/21214. Security practitioners should consult these for patching instructions and workarounds.
Details
- CWE(s)