What is CVE-2017-17997?

CVE-2017-17997 is a high-severity vulnerability in Wireshark, classified under NULL Pointer Dereference. CVSS score: 7.5/10. Published 2017-12-30.

How severe is CVE-2017-17997?

High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.5 out of 10.

NULL pointer dereference in Wireshark

CVE-2017-17997

In Wireshark before 2.2.12, the MRDISC dissector misuses a NULL pointer and crashes. This was addressed in epan/dissectors/packet-mrdisc.c by validating an IPv4 address. This vulnerability is similar to CVE-2017-9343.

Published 2017-12-30 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 7.5 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.018 (78.0th percentile), scored 2026-10-01.

Low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, but still tracked. 78th percentile — 78.0% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.018 · newest: 0.018 · change: +0.001

Affected products

Wireshark
Debian Linux — versions 8.0

Weakness classification (CWE)

CWE-476 — NULL Pointer Dereference

References

code.wireshark.org/review/ (Patch, Issue Tracking, Vendor Advisory)
code.wireshark.org/review/gitweb
www.wireshark.org/security/wnpa-sec-2018-02.html (Vendor Advisory)
bugs.wireshark.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi (Patch, Issue Tracking, Vendor Advisory)
lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2019/01/msg00010.html (mailing-list, Mailing List, Third Party Advisory)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2017-17997?: CVE-2017-17997 is a high-severity vulnerability in Wireshark, classified under NULL Pointer Dereference. CVSS score: 7.5/10. Published 2017-12-30.
How severe is CVE-2017-17997?: High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.5 out of 10.