# CVE-2020-16224: Philips Patient Monitoring Devices Improper Handling of Length Parameter Inconsistency

> Attackers can cause the surveillance station to restart by sending messages with inconsistent length fields, disrupting patient monitoring operations.

- **Severity:** Medium 6.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 11 Sep 2020
- **Updated:** 4 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-mpj3-4vv5-g8qc

## What is CVE-2020-16224?

CVE-2020-16224 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Philips Patient Information Center iX (PICiX), published on 11 Sep 2020. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

In Patient Information Center iX (PICiX) Versions C.02, C.03, the 
software parses a formatted message or structure but does not handle or 
incorrectly handles a length field that is inconsistent with the actual 
length of the associated data, causing the application on the 
surveillance station to restart.

Weakness: CWE-130 (Improper Handling of Length Parameter Inconsistency)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2020-16224?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Philips Patient Information Center Ix.

## How do I fix CVE-2020-16224?

No fix has been published for CVE-2020-16224 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2020-16224 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2020-16224 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Philips Patient Information Center iX (PICiX)

- [CVE-2020-16222](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-16222/): Philips Patient Monitoring Devices Improper Authentication (high 8.8)
- [CVE-2020-16212](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-16212/): Philips Patient Monitoring Devices Exposure of Resource to Wrong Sphere (medium 6.8)
- [CVE-2021-43548](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-43548/): Philips Patient Information Center iX (PIC iX) and Efficia CM Series Improper Input Validation (medium 6.5)
- [CVE-2021-43552](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-43552/): Philips Patient Information Center iX (PIC iX) and Efficia CM Series Use of Hard-coded Cryptographic Key (medium 6.1)
- [CVE-2020-16214](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-16214/): Philips Patient Monitoring Devices Improper Neutralization of Formula Elements in a CSV File (medium 5.0)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2020-16224 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2020-16224 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Philips Patient Information Center iX (PICiX), published on 11 Sep 2020. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2020-16224 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Philips Patient Information Center iX (PICiX). No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-16224/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-16224/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2020-16224
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-16224
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2020-16224

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From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-16224/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.