Wireshark is the world's foremost and widely-used network protocol analyzer. It lets you see what's happening on your network at a microscopic level and is the de facto (and often de jure) standard across many commercial and non-profit enterprises, government agencies, and educational institutions. Wireshark development thrives thanks to the volunteer contributions of networking experts around the globe and is the continuation of a project started by Gerald Combs in 1998.

Features

  • Deep inspection of hundreds of protocols, with more being added all the time
  • Live capture and offline analysis
  • Standard three-pane packet browser
  • Multi-platform: Runs on Windows, Linux, macOS, Solaris, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and many others
  • Captured network data can be browsed via a GUI, or via the TTY-mode TShark utility
  • The most powerful display filters in the industry
  • Rich VoIP analysis
  • Read/write many different capture file formats: tcpdump (libpcap), Pcap NG, Catapult DCT2000, Cisco Secure IDS iplog, Microsoft Network Monitor, Network General Sniffer (compressed and uncompressed), Sniffer Pro, and NetXray, Network Instruments Observer, NetScreen snoop, Novell LANalyzer, RADCOM WAN/LAN Analyzer, Shomiti/Finisar Surveyor, Tektronix K12xx, Visual Networks Visual UpTime, WildPackets EtherPeek/TokenPeek/AiroPeek, and many others
  • Capture files compressed with gzip can be decompressed on the fly
  • Live data can be read from Ethernet, IEEE 802.11, PPP/HDLC, ATM, Bluetooth, USB, Token Ring, Frame Relay, FDDI, and others (depending on your platform)
  • Decryption support for many protocols, including IPsec, ISAKMP, Kerberos, SNMPv3, SSL/TLS, WEP, and WPA/WPA2
  • Coloring rules can be applied to the packet list for quick, intuitive analysis
  • Output can be exported to XML, PostScript®, CSV, or plain text

What's New

Bug Fixes

The following vulnerabilities have been fixed:

  • wnpa-sec-2026-52 Catapult DCT2000 protocol dissector crash. Issue 21270.
  • wnpa-sec-2026-53 pcapng file parser crash. Issue 21285.
  • wnpa-sec-2026-54 FMP/NOTIFY protocol dissector large loop. Issue 21347.
  • wnpa-sec-2026-55 SSH protocol dissector crash. Issue 21378.
  • wnpa-sec-2026-56 TLS ECH decryption crash. Issue 21390.
  • wnpa-sec-2026-57 IEEE 802.11 protocol dissector crash. Issue 21391.
  • wnpa-sec-2026-58 Z39.50 protocol dissector crash. Issue 21397.
  • wnpa-sec-2026-59 UMTS FP protocol dissector crash. Issue 21398.
  • wnpa-sec-2026-60 BLF file parser information disclosure. Issue 21361.
  • wnpa-sec-2026-61 Multiple protocol dissector infinite loops. Issue 21275, Issue 21277, Issue 21330, Issue 21383.
  • wnpa-sec-2026-62 DBS Etherwatch file parser crash. Issue 21352.
  • wnpa-sec-2026-63 Ciscodump extcap crash. Issue 21375.
  • The following bugs have been fixed:
  • Wireshark appears in German when the system language is Dutch. Issue 20347.
  • Qt: Capture filter combo box does not enforce minimum size or expanding size policy. Issue 21080.
  • BACapp: Error parsing you-are request. Issue 21260.
  • Use-After-Free in Ethernet POWERLINK (EPL) Dissector during profile loading error path. Issue 21267.
  • Sponsor slides are not properly shown. Issue 21268.
  • Buffer overlow/segfault in Catapult DCT2000 dissector via not check no_ddi_entries in header. Issue 21270.
  • Fuzz job issue: fuzz-2026-05-24-14517548985.pcap. Issue 21272.
  • Fuzz job UTF-8 encoding issue: fuzz-2026-06-07-14732586286.pcap. Issue 21331.
  • Memory leak in alp-sample1.pcap. Issue 21343.
  • Memory leak in nspi.pcap. Issue 21344.
  • Heap-Buffer-Overflow in Wireshark Logcat Parser. Issue 21346.
  • IPv6 Ping from Debian (among others) is dissected as "HiPerConTracer" Issue 21349.
  • HEVC (H.265) dissector: bit_offset not advanced after sub_layer_hrd_parameters() causes false Malformed Packet. Issue 21362.
  • dfilter_compile_full: heap-buffer-overflow READ in ws_strptime on a time literal. Issue 21376.
  • Wireshark crashes with a HEAP_CORRUPTION error when using the last saved recent_common file. Issue 21379.
  • Fuzz job issue: fuzz-2026-06-30-15106674620.pcap. Issue 21381.

New and Updated Features

  • The Windows installers are now built with Visual Studio 2026.