What is CVE-2018-6836?

CVE-2018-6836 is a critical-severity vulnerability in Wireshark, classified under Release of Invalid Pointer or Reference. CVSS score: 9.8/10. Published 2018-02-08.

How severe is CVE-2018-6836?

Critical severity. CVSS v3 base score is 9.8 out of 10.

Vulnerability in Wireshark

CVE-2018-6836

The netmonrec_comment_destroy function in wiretap/netmon.c in Wireshark through 2.4.4 performs a free operation on an uninitialized memory address, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (application crash) or possibly have unspecified other impact.

Published 2018-02-08 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 9.8 (Critical). Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.027 (85.5th percentile), scored 2026-09-30.

Low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, but still tracked. 85th percentile — 85.5% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.027 · newest: 0.027 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Wireshark

Weakness classification (CWE)

CWE-763 — Release of Invalid Pointer or Reference

References

code.wireshark.org/review/ (Patch)
code.wireshark.org/review/gitweb
bugs.wireshark.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi (Exploit, Third Party Advisory, Issue Tracking)
code.wireshark.org/review/ (Patch, Issue Tracking)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2018-6836?: CVE-2018-6836 is a critical-severity vulnerability in Wireshark, classified under Release of Invalid Pointer or Reference. CVSS score: 9.8/10. Published 2018-02-08.
How severe is CVE-2018-6836?: Critical severity. CVSS v3 base score is 9.8 out of 10.