CVE-2021-33022
📋 TL;DR
This vulnerability allows unauthorized actors to intercept sensitive medical data transmitted in cleartext by Philips Vue PACS systems. Attackers can sniff network traffic to capture patient information, medical images, and authentication credentials. Healthcare organizations using affected Philips PACS versions are impacted.
💻 Affected Systems
- Philips Vue PACS
📦 What is this software?
Myvue by Philips
Speech by Philips
Vue Motion by Philips
Vue Pacs by Philips
⚠️ Risk & Real-World Impact
Worst Case
Complete compromise of patient medical records, including sensitive health information and medical images, leading to privacy violations, medical identity theft, and regulatory penalties.
Likely Case
Unauthorized access to patient data and authentication credentials, potentially enabling further system compromise and data exfiltration.
If Mitigated
Limited data exposure if network segmentation and encryption controls prevent sniffing, though risk remains if controls are bypassed.
🎯 Exploit Status
Exploitation requires network access to sniff traffic; no authentication needed to intercept data.
🛠️ Fix & Mitigation
✅ Official Fix
Patch Version: Contact Philips for specific patched versions
Vendor Advisory: http://www.philips.com/productsecurity
Restart Required: Yes
Instructions:
1. Contact Philips support for patched versions. 2. Apply vendor-provided patches. 3. Restart affected systems. 4. Verify encryption is enabled for all sensitive communications.
🔧 Temporary Workarounds
Enable Network Encryption
allConfigure TLS/SSL encryption for all network communications involving sensitive data.
Network Segmentation
allIsolate PACS systems on separate VLANs with strict access controls.
🧯 If You Can't Patch
- Implement network-level encryption (VPNs, IPSec) for all PACS communications.
- Deploy network monitoring and intrusion detection to alert on cleartext traffic.
🔍 How to Verify
Check if Vulnerable:
Use network sniffing tools (Wireshark) to capture traffic from PACS systems and check for cleartext sensitive data.Check Version:
Check system documentation or contact Philips support for version information.Verify Fix Applied:
Verify all network communications show encrypted protocols (TLS/SSL) and no cleartext sensitive data.📡 Detection & Monitoring
Log Indicators:
- Unusual network traffic patterns
- Failed encryption handshake attempts
Network Indicators:
- Cleartext HTTP traffic containing medical data
- Unencrypted DICOM transmissions
SIEM Query:
source_ip="PACS_IP" AND protocol="HTTP" AND (contains("patient") OR contains("medical"))