VulnerabilityPublished 18 Sep 2020Updated 4 Jun 2025

CVE-2020-16200: Philips Clinical Collaboration Platform · CWE-757

Affects Philips Clinical Collaboration PlatformSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 6.5 Medium.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 14:05 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

6.5Medium

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 0.6% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 49% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Attack Vector: Adjacent
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: None
Integrity: None
Availability: High

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Adjacent: The vulnerable component is bound to the network stack, but the attack is limited at the protocol level to a logically adjacent topology. This can mean an attack must be launched from the same shared physical (e.g., Bluetooth or IEEE 802.11) or logical (e.g., local IP subnet) network, or from within a secure or otherwise limited administrative domain (e.g., MPLS, secure VPN to an administrative network zone).
Attack Complexity: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: None: The attacker is unauthorized prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files to carry out an attack.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without any interaction from any user.
Scope: Unchanged: An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.
Confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the impacted component.
Integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the impacted component.
Availability: High: There is total loss of availability, resulting in the attacker being able to fully deny access to resources in the impacted component; this loss is either sustained (while the attacker continues to deliver the attack) or persistent (the condition persists even after the attack has completed). Alternatively, the attacker has the ability to deny some availability, but the loss of availability presents a direct, serious consequence to the impacted component (e.g., the attacker cannot disrupt existing connections, but can prevent new connections; the attacker can repeatedly exploit a vulnerability that, in each instance of a successful attack, leaks a only small amount of memory, but after repeated exploitation causes a service to become completely unavailable).

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 18 Sep 2020
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 26 Oct 2026.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponised: Public exploit code exists in Metasploit or Exploit-DB, or CISA SSVC or the CVSS exploit maturity reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
Philips Clinical Collaboration Platform	Affected =0	Fixed in–

AI-suggested

To mitigate CVE-2020-16200, European healthcare organizations should take several specific steps beyond generic advice: 1) Engage with Philips to confirm the availability of patches or updates addressing this vulnerability and prioritize their deployment in clinical environments. 2) Implement strict network segmentation and access controls to limit adjacent network access to the Clinical Collaboration Platform, ensuring only authorized devices and personnel can communicate with it. 3) Monitor resource utilization metrics on the platform closely to detect abnormal consumption patterns that may indicate exploitation attempts. 4) Employ intrusion detection or prevention systems (IDS/IPS) tuned to detect unusual traffic patterns or resource exhaustion behaviors within the internal network. 5) Conduct regular security assessments and penetration tests focusing on internal network threats and lateral movement scenarios to identify and remediate weaknesses that could facilitate exploitation. 6) Develop and rehearse incident response plans that include procedures for rapid isolation and recovery of affected clinical systems to minimize downtime. 7) Educate internal IT and clinical staff about the risks of internal network threats and the importance of reporting anomalies promptly. These targeted measures will help reduce the risk of exploitation and limit the impact if an attack occurs.

Description

Philips Clinical Collaboration Platform, Versions 12.2.1 and prior, does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource, thereby enabling an attacker to influence the amount of resources consumed, eventually leading to the exhaustion of available resources.

Impact

For European organizations, particularly healthcare providers using the Philips Clinical Collaboration Platform, this vulnerability poses a risk of service disruption. The exhaustion of resources could lead to denial of service, impairing clinical communication and collaboration tools that are essential for patient care coordination. This can delay critical medical decisions and reduce operational efficiency. Given the sensitive nature of healthcare environments and the reliance on continuous availability of clinical systems, even temporary outages could have serious patient safety implications. Additionally, healthcare providers in Europe are subject to strict regulatory requirements such as GDPR and the EU Medical Device Regulation (MDR), which mandate maintaining system availability and integrity. A successful exploitation could therefore not only impact patient care but also lead to regulatory scrutiny and potential compliance issues. The vulnerability's requirement for adjacent network access somewhat limits the attack surface to internal or segmented networks, but insider threats or lateral movement by attackers who have breached perimeter defenses remain plausible scenarios. Thus, European healthcare organizations must consider this vulnerability in their risk assessments and incident response planning.

CWE-757Selection of Less-Secure Algorithm During Negotiation ('Algorithm Downgrade') (opens in a new tab)
Base weaknessOWASP Top 10 A04:2025: Cryptographic Failures (opens in a new tab)
A protocol or its implementation supports interaction between multiple actors and allows those actors to negotiate which algorithm should be used as a protection mechanism such as encryption or authentication, but it does not select the strongest algorithm that is available to both parties.
OWASP Cheat Sheets
Transport Layer Protection (opens in a new tab)
User Privacy Protection (opens in a new tab)
Password Storage (opens in a new tab)
Cryptographic Storage (opens in a new tab)
HSTS (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
Client-Server Protocol Manipulation (opens in a new tab)
Weakening of Cellular Encryption (opens in a new tab)
Drop Encryption Level (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

Community reviews

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 7 Jul 2025, 03:10 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-757

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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