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.

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.

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.