Vulnerability · Published Sep 5, 2026 · Assigned by Tcpdump
CVE-2026-6554infinte loop in libpcap before 1.10.7
High 7.5
In plain English
A high-severity infinite loop in libpcap from The Tcpdump Group. There are no confirmed reports of exploitation so far. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 0.4% (higher than 38% of all known vulnerabilities). Fixed versions are available - upgrade the affected package.
Official description
libpcap BPF interpreter treats the offset in the 'ja L' BPF instruction as a signed integer to implement looping via backward jumps, but it does not limit the number of loop iterations. A crafted filter program or the 'protochain' primitive used on a crafted network packet can cause the interpreter to loop infinitely.
Affected packages & fixed versions
| Ecosystem | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alpine:v3.21 | libpcap | 1.10.7-r0 | ALPINE-CVE-2026-6554 |
| Alpine:v3.22 | libpcap | 1.10.7-r0 | ALPINE-CVE-2026-6554 |
| Alpine:v3.23 | libpcap | 1.10.7-r0 | ALPINE-CVE-2026-6554 |
| Alpine:v3.24 | libpcap | 1.10.7-r0 | ALPINE-CVE-2026-6554 |
| Debian:12 | libpcap | no fix listed | DEBIAN-CVE-2026-6554 |
| Debian:13 | libpcap | no fix listed | DEBIAN-CVE-2026-6554 |
| Debian:14 | libpcap | 1.10.7-1 | DEBIAN-CVE-2026-6554 |
| Ubuntu:22.04:LTS | libpcap | no fix listed | UBUNTU-CVE-2026-6554 |
| Ubuntu:24.04:LTS | libpcap | no fix listed | UBUNTU-CVE-2026-6554 |
| Ubuntu:26.04:LTS | libpcap | no fix listed | UBUNTU-CVE-2026-6554 |
| Ubuntu:26.10 | libpcap | no fix listed | UBUNTU-CVE-2026-6554 |
Affected products (as reported)
| Vendor | Product | Versions |
|---|---|---|
| The Tcpdump Group | libpcap | 0 – before 1.10.7 |
Weakness: CWE-835 · Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H