CVE-2025-14501VulnerabilityPublished 23 Dec 2025Updated 29 Dec 2025

CVE-2025-14501: Sante PACS Server · NULL Pointer Dereference

Affects Sante PACS ServerSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 7.5 High.

Data as of 25 Oct 2026, 19:02 UTC

CVSS 3.0 base score

7.5High

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

EPSS: 0.7% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 55% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Attack Vector: Network
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: Network: The vulnerable component is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed, up to and including the entire Internet. Such a vulnerability is often termed 'remotely exploitable' and can be thought of as an attack being exploitable at the protocol level one or more network hops away (e.g., across one or more routers).
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 23 Dec 2025
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 2026-10-25.

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 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
Sante PACS Server	Affected =4.2.2	Fixed in–

AI-suggested

Until an official patch is released, European organizations using Sante PACS Server 4.2.2 should implement the following mitigations: 1) Deploy network-level filtering to block or rate-limit suspicious HTTP requests, especially those with anomalous or malformed Content-Length headers. 2) Use web application firewalls (WAFs) configured to detect and block malformed HTTP headers targeting the PACS Server. 3) Isolate PACS Server instances behind segmented network zones with strict access controls to limit exposure to untrusted networks. 4) Monitor server logs and network traffic for unusual HTTP request patterns indicative of exploitation attempts. 5) Establish incident response procedures to quickly recover from potential denial-of-service events, including server restarts and failover mechanisms. 6) Engage with the vendor for timely updates and apply patches as soon as they become available. 7) Consider deploying redundancy and load balancing to minimize service disruption impact. These steps go beyond generic advice by focusing on HTTP header inspection, network segmentation, and proactive monitoring tailored to the vulnerability’s exploitation vector.

Description

Sante PACS Server HTTP Content-Length Header Handling NULL Pointer Dereference Denial-of-Service Vulnerability. This vulnerability allows remote attackers to create a denial-of-service condition on affected installations of Sante PACS Server. Authentication is not required to exploit this vulnerability. The specific flaw exists within the handling of HTTP Content-Length header. The issue results from the lack of proper validation of a pointer prior to accessing it. An attacker can leverage this vulnerability to create a denial-of-service condition on the system. Was ZDI-CAN-26770.

Impact

The primary impact of CVE-2025-14501 is denial of service, which can disrupt the availability of Sante PACS Server systems. For European healthcare organizations, this disruption can delay access to critical medical imaging data, potentially affecting patient diagnosis and treatment workflows. Hospitals and clinics relying on Sante PACS Server for imaging storage and retrieval may experience downtime, leading to operational inefficiencies and increased risk to patient care. Additionally, denial-of-service conditions can strain IT resources and require emergency incident response. While confidentiality and integrity are not directly impacted, the availability loss in healthcare environments is critical due to the time-sensitive nature of medical imaging. The vulnerability’s ease of exploitation without authentication increases the risk of opportunistic attacks or targeted disruptions. Given the strategic importance of healthcare infrastructure in Europe, such disruptions could also have broader implications for healthcare service continuity and trust in medical IT systems.

Summary

CVE-2025-14501 is a denial-of-service vulnerability identified in Sante PACS Server version 4.2.2, a medical imaging management system widely used in healthcare environments. The vulnerability arises from improper validation of a pointer when processing the HTTP Content-Length header in incoming requests. Specifically, the server fails to check if a pointer is NULL before dereferencing it, leading to a NULL pointer dereference condition. When exploited, this causes the server application to crash or become unresponsive, resulting in denial of service. The vulnerability can be triggered remotely by sending a specially crafted HTTP request with a malformed Content-Length header. No authentication or user interaction is required, which significantly lowers the barrier for exploitation. The CVSS v3.0 base score is 7.5 (high), reflecting the network attack vector, low attack complexity, no privileges or user interaction needed, and a high impact on availability. Although no known exploits have been reported in the wild, the vulnerability poses a significant risk to the availability of PACS services, which are critical for storing and retrieving medical images. The lack of an official patch at disclosure time necessitates immediate mitigation through network controls and monitoring. This vulnerability is tracked as CWE-476 (NULL Pointer Dereference), a common programming error that can lead to application crashes.

CWE-476NULL Pointer Dereference (opens in a new tab)
Base weaknessLikelihood of exploit: MediumCWE Top 25 (2025): #13OWASP Top 10 A10:2025: Mishandling of Exceptional Conditions (opens in a new tab)
The product dereferences a pointer that it expects to be valid but is NULL.
Implementation
For any pointers that could have been modified or provided from a function that can return NULL, check the pointer for NULL before use. When working with a multithreaded or otherwise asynchronous environment, ensure that proper locking APIs are used to lock before the check, and unlock when it has finished.
Requirements
Select a programming language that is not susceptible to these issues.
Implementation
Check the results of all functions that return a value and verify that the value is non-null before acting upon it.
OWASP Cheat Sheets
Logging (opens in a new tab)
Error Handling (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V11.1.7 (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

zerodayinitiative.com/advisories/ZDI-25-1104/ (opens in a new tab)

Community reviews

Loading reviews…

Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 31 Dec 2025, 00:06 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-476

Technical details

References

Community reviews

Related threats