CVE-2022-0582 in Wireshark
Summary
by MITRE • 02/15/2022
Unaligned access in the CSN.1 protocol dissector in Wireshark 3.6.0 to 3.6.1 and 3.4.0 to 3.4.11 allows denial of service via packet injection or crafted capture file
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 03/29/2026
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2022-0582 represents a critical denial of service flaw within Wireshark's CSN.1 protocol dissector implementation. This issue affects specific versions of Wireshark including releases 3.6.0 through 3.6.1 and 3.4.0 through 3.4.11, creating a persistent risk for network security professionals and analysts who rely on this packet analysis tool for network traffic inspection. The flaw manifests through unaligned memory access patterns that occur when processing CSN.1 protocol data structures, which are commonly used in telecommunications and networking environments for encoding complex data types.
The technical root cause of this vulnerability lies in improper memory alignment handling within the dissector code responsible for parsing CSN.1 formatted packets. When Wireshark encounters network traffic containing CSN.1 encoded data, the dissector attempts to access memory locations that are not properly aligned to the natural word boundaries of the processor architecture. This unaligned memory access triggers undefined behavior in the application, potentially leading to segmentation faults or application crashes. The vulnerability is particularly concerning because it can be exploited through multiple vectors including live packet injection or by crafting malicious capture files that contain specially formatted CSN.1 data structures designed to trigger the memory access error.
From an operational perspective, this vulnerability presents a significant risk to network security operations and incident response activities. Security analysts who depend on Wireshark for network traffic analysis and forensic investigations could experience complete tool failure when processing legitimate network traffic containing CSN.1 protocol data. The denial of service impact extends beyond simple application crashes, as it can disrupt ongoing network monitoring operations, compromise forensic analysis capabilities, and potentially provide attackers with a method to disrupt network security infrastructure. This vulnerability particularly affects environments where CSN.1 protocol traffic is common, such as telecommunications networks, industrial control systems, and legacy network infrastructure where such protocols remain in active use.
The mitigation strategy for CVE-2022-0582 involves immediate upgrading to Wireshark versions that contain the necessary patches, specifically versions 3.4.12 and 3.6.2 or later. Organizations should prioritize this update across all systems where Wireshark is installed and utilized for network analysis purposes. Additionally, network security teams should implement monitoring for unusual application behavior that might indicate exploitation attempts, though the specific attack vectors for this vulnerability are limited to the controlled injection of CSN.1 protocol data. Security professionals should also consider implementing temporary network segmentation or traffic filtering measures that can prevent or limit exposure to potentially malicious capture files. This vulnerability aligns with CWE-121 which addresses stack-based buffer overflow conditions, and represents a classic example of memory safety issues that fall under the ATT&CK technique T1490 for denial of service through resource exhaustion. The vulnerability demonstrates how seemingly minor implementation flaws in protocol dissectors can have significant operational impacts on network security tooling and the broader security infrastructure that depends on these tools for effective monitoring and analysis.