Overview
This report is focused on the CVE-2025-53948 vulnerability, a severe flaw found in the Sante PACS Server. This vulnerability allows a remote attacker to crash the server’s main thread by sending a specially crafted HL7 message, thus causing a denial-of-service condition. Given the fact that no authentication is required to exploit this vulnerability, it poses a significant risk to all systems running the affected software.
Vulnerability Summary
CVE ID: CVE-2025-53948
Severity: High (CVSS: 7.5)
Attack Vector: Network
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: None
Impact: Denial-of-Service and potential system compromise or data leakage
Affected Products
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Product | Affected Versions
Sante PACS Server | All versions prior to the latest patch
How the Exploit Works
The vulnerability is exploited by sending a malformed HL7 message to the Sante PACS Server. The server fails to handle this anomalous input correctly, leading to a crash of the main thread. This results in a denial-of-service condition that requires a manual restart of the application. Because the server does not require authentication to process HL7 messages, an attacker can exploit this vulnerability remotely, over a network.
Conceptual Example Code
Below is a conceptual example of a malformed HL7 message that an attacker might send to exploit this vulnerability:
POST /HL7/Processing HTTP/1.1
Host: target.example.com
Content-Type: application/hl7-v2
Content-Length: ...
MSH|^~\&|MaliciousApp|Attacker|SantePACS|Target|...|^MaliciousMessage^...Note
: The actual malicious payload is represented by `^MaliciousMessage^…` in the example above. The specific nature of the malicious payload is not provided here for security reasons.
Mitigation Guidance
It is strongly recommended that all users of the Sante PACS Server apply the patch provided by the vendor as soon as possible. In the meantime, or if patching is not immediately feasible, the use of a Web Application Firewall (WAF) or Intrusion Detection System (IDS) may provide temporary mitigation by blocking or alerting on anomalous HL7 messages.
