CVE-2025-53948
📋 TL;DR
CVE-2025-53948 is a denial-of-service vulnerability in Sante PACS Server where a remote attacker can crash the main thread by sending a specially crafted HL7 message. This affects all Sante PACS Server installations that process HL7 messages, requiring manual restart to recover service. No authentication is required for exploitation.
💻 Affected Systems
- Sante PACS Server
📦 What is this software?
⚠️ Risk & Real-World Impact
Worst Case
Complete service outage requiring manual intervention, potentially disrupting medical imaging workflows and patient care in healthcare environments.
Likely Case
Service disruption requiring IT staff to restart the PACS server, causing temporary unavailability of medical imaging data.
If Mitigated
Minimal impact if network segmentation and input validation controls prevent malicious HL7 messages from reaching the server.
🎯 Exploit Status
Crafting malicious HL7 messages requires minimal technical skill, and the vulnerability is straightforward to exploit once the message format is understood.
🛠️ Fix & Mitigation
✅ Official Fix
Patch Version: Check vendor advisory for specific patched version
Vendor Advisory: https://www.santesoft.com/security-advisories
Restart Required: Yes
Instructions:
1. Check vendor advisory for specific patch version
2. Backup current configuration and data
3. Apply vendor-provided patch or upgrade to patched version
4. Restart Sante PACS Server service
5. Verify service functionality
🔧 Temporary Workarounds
Network Segmentation
allRestrict network access to Sante PACS Server to only trusted sources using firewalls or network ACLs
HL7 Message Filtering
allImplement network-level filtering or proxy to validate HL7 messages before they reach the PACS server
🧯 If You Can't Patch
- Implement strict network segmentation to limit access to the PACS server only from authorized medical systems
- Deploy an HL7 message validation gateway or firewall that inspects and sanitizes incoming HL7 traffic
🔍 How to Verify
Check if Vulnerable:
Check Sante PACS Server version against vendor advisory. If running unpatched version with HL7 processing enabled, system is vulnerable.Check Version:
Check Sante PACS Server administration interface or consult vendor documentation for version checking procedureVerify Fix Applied:
After patching, verify the server version matches patched version in vendor advisory and test HL7 message processing functionality.📡 Detection & Monitoring
Log Indicators:
- Unexpected service crashes or restarts
- HL7 processing errors or malformed message warnings
- Increased error rates in application logs
Network Indicators:
- Unusual HL7 message patterns from unexpected sources
- Multiple connection attempts followed by service disruption
- Traffic spikes to HL7 ports (typically 2575)
SIEM Query:
source="sante-pacs" AND (event_type="crash" OR event_type="restart") OR (protocol="hl7" AND message_size>threshold)