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DcmtkApplication · Offis

CVE-2022-4981

MEDIUM · 5.5 CVSS v3.1 Published 2025-10-21
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 3.6.8 or later.
See remediation →
57/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Public exploit Zero-click

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
A vulnerability was detected in DCMTK up to 3.6.7. The impacted element is the function DcmQueryRetrieveConfig::readPeerList of the file /dcmqrcnf.cc of the component dcmqrscp. The manipulation results in null pointer dereference. The attack needs to be approached locally. The exploit is now public and may be used. Upgrading to version 3.6.8 is sufficient to resolve this issue. The patch is identified as 957fb31e5. Upgrading the affected component is advised.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis

A detailed technical summary for this CVE is being prepared.

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
DcmtkApplication
Affected:< 3.6.8

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Local
Complexity
Low
Privileges
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

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

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to 3.6.8 or later
Fixed in 3.6.8
Recommended fix High confidence

DCMTK 3.6.8

  1. 1. Check the currently installed DCMTK version using 'dcmqrscp -v' or checking your package manager
  2. 2. Download DCMTK version 3.6.8 from the official DCMTK website (dcmtk.org) or your distribution's package repository
  3. 3. If using source compilation, run './configure', 'make', and 'make install' with the new 3.6.8 source code
  4. 4. If using a package manager (apt, yum, brew, etc.), upgrade the package to the available 3.6.8 version
  5. 5. Restart any running dcmqrscp services or applications that use DCMTK
  6. 6. Verify the new version is installed by running 'dcmqrscp -v'

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

We can perform the upgrade in your staging environment and verify nothing breaks — typical engagement from $1,600. Get the upgrade done

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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2022-4981 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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