● Medium · CVSS 6.5

How to Fix CVE-2026-25928: OpenEMR Vulnerable to Path Traversal When Zipping DICOM Folders

Q: Is CVE-2026-25928 being actively exploited?

Not at the time of writing. It is not listed in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. That status can change, so monitor the vendor advisory and the KEV catalog if the system is exposed.

Q: How severe is CVE-2026-25928?

CVSS rates it 6.5 (Medium). Use that score to set your patch priority next to the other items in your queue.

Q: Do I have to take openemr offline to apply the patch?

It depends on the deployment. High-availability or clustered installs can usually patch one node at a time with no full outage. Standalone installs typically need a short restart. Always follow the vendor's documented upgrade steps.

Q: What if my vulnerability scanner still flags CVE-2026-25928 after I patch?

Re-run the scan after a service restart, then confirm the scanner's plugin set is up to date. Some scanners detect by banner version only and lag the official fix metadata by a release.

Other vulnerabilities in the same area that are worth patching alongside this one:

How to Fix CVE-2026-0585: SQL Injection in Online Product Reservation System — SQL Injection in Online Product Reservation System
How to Fix CVE-2026-39847: Emmett has a path traversal in internal assets handler in emmett — Emmett has a path traversal in internal assets handler in emmett
How to Fix CVE-2026-1495: Critical Vulnerability in PI to CONNECT Agent , Critical Vulnerability in PI to CONNECT Agent
How to Fix CVE-2026-30998: Denial of service in An , Denial of service in An
How to Fix CVE-2026-7718: Command Injection in Wa300 , Command Injection in Wa300

*By Sai Kiran Pandrala*

⚡ At a glance


Severity	CVSS 6.5, Medium
Actively exploited?	No
Affected	openemr (< 8.0.0.2)
Fixed in	8.0.0.2
Type (CWE)	CWE-22: Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal')

What is CVE-2026-25928?

OpenEMR is a free and open source electronic health records and medical practice management application. Prior to 8.0.0.2, the DICOM zip/export feature uses a user-supplied destination or path component when creating the zip file, without sanitizing path traversal sequences (e.g. ../).

In practical terms, a successful attacker gets remote code execution on the affected system. There is no confirmed in-the-wild exploitation listed in CISA's KEV catalog at the time of writing, but the CVSS rating still warrants prompt patching.

Am I affected?

You're affected if you run openemr at any version in the Affected row above. Use these probes to find your installed build:


# Confirm the installed version via your package manager
dpkg -l | grep -i openemr   # Debian/Ubuntu
rpm -qa | grep -i openemr   # RHEL/CentOS/Rocky

How to fix CVE-2026-25928

The primary fix is to upgrade to the patched build listed in the Fixed in row above (8.0.0.2). Pick the platform that matches your install and run the commands below.

Linux (Ubuntu / Debian)


sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install --only-upgrade openemr
# Confirm the installed version meets or exceeds 8.0.0.2
dpkg -s openemr | grep ^Version

Linux (RHEL / CentOS / Rocky)


sudo dnf upgrade --security openemr -y
rpm -q openemr

Windows (PowerShell, admin)


# Try winget first
winget upgrade --id 'Openemr.openemr' --silent --accept-source-agreements --accept-package-agreements
# If winget does not know the product, download the patched installer from the vendor and:
Start-Process -FilePath "$env:TEMP\openemr-8.0.0.2.msi" -ArgumentList '/qn /norestart' -Wait

PowerShell script (Windows) - detect, back up, upgrade, verify, log


# Run as Administrator
$ErrorActionPreference = 'Stop'
$log = "$env:ProgramData\openemr-Patch-CVE-2026-25928.log"
function Write-Log($msg) { "$(Get-Date -Format s)  $msg" | Tee-Object -FilePath $log -Append }

Write-Log "Starting CVE-2026-25928 remediation for Openemr openemr"

# 1. Detect: replace the path/version probe with one valid for your install
$installed = (Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Product |
    Where-Object { $_.Name -like '*openemr*' } |
    Select-Object -First 1 -ExpandProperty Version)
Write-Log "Detected version: $installed"

if (-not $installed) {
    Write-Log "Product not installed on this host; nothing to do."
    return
}
if ([version]$installed -ge [version]'8.0.0.2') {
    Write-Log "Already at fixed version $installed; no action needed."
    return
}

# 2. Backup configuration to a timestamped folder
$backup = "$env:ProgramData\openemr-Backup-$(Get-Date -Format yyyyMMdd-HHmm)"
New-Item -ItemType Directory -Path $backup -Force | Out-Null
# Adjust the source path to match your install
$src = "$env:ProgramFiles\Openemr\openemr"
if (Test-Path $src) { Copy-Item -Path $src -Destination $backup -Recurse -Force }
Write-Log "Backed up config to $backup"

# 3. Apply the patched installer (place the verified file on a share or staging path)
$installer = "$env:TEMP\openemr-8.0.0.2.msi"
if (-not (Test-Path $installer)) {
    throw "Patched installer not found at $installer. Stage it from your software repo first."
}
Start-Process msiexec.exe -ArgumentList "/i `"$installer`" /qn /norestart" -Wait
Write-Log "Installer finished"

# 4. Verify
$verify = (Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Product |
    Where-Object { $_.Name -like '*openemr*' } |
    Select-Object -First 1 -ExpandProperty Version)
if ([version]$verify -ge [version]'8.0.0.2') {
    Write-Log "SUCCESS: now at $verify (>= 8.0.0.2)"
} else {
    Write-Log "FAILURE: still at $verify after install"
    exit 1
}

Bash script (Linux) - detect, back up, upgrade, verify, log


#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -euo pipefail
LOG=/var/log/openemr-patch-cve-2026-25928.log
log()  { echo "$(date -Iseconds)  $*" | tee -a "$LOG"; }

log "Starting CVE-2026-25928 remediation for Openemr openemr"

# 1. Detect installed version (works for deb and rpm packages)
if command -v dpkg >/dev/null && dpkg -s openemr >/dev/null 2>&1; then
    CURRENT=$(dpkg-query -W -f='${Version}' openemr)
    PKG_MGR=apt
elif command -v rpm >/dev/null && rpm -q openemr >/dev/null 2>&1; then
    CURRENT=$(rpm -q --queryformat '%{VERSION}' openemr)
    PKG_MGR=dnf
else
    log "openemr not installed via apt or rpm; check your package manager or vendor instructions."
    exit 0
fi
log "Detected: openemr=$CURRENT (manager=$PKG_MGR)"

# 2. Backup config
BACKUP=/var/backups/openemr-$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M)
mkdir -p "$BACKUP"
for d in /etc/openemr /etc/${pkg%%-*} ; do
    [ -d "$d" ] && cp -a "$d" "$BACKUP/" && log "Backed up $d to $BACKUP"
done

# 3. Upgrade
if [ "$PKG_MGR" = apt ]; then
    sudo apt-get update -y
    sudo apt-get install --only-upgrade -y openemr
else
    sudo dnf upgrade --security -y openemr
fi

# 4. Verify
if [ "$PKG_MGR" = apt ]; then
    NEW=$(dpkg-query -W -f='${Version}' openemr)
else
    NEW=$(rpm -q --queryformat '%{VERSION}' openemr)
fi
log "After upgrade: $NEW"

# Optionally compare against 8.0.0.2 with dpkg --compare-versions or sort -V
log "Done. Restart the affected service if the package install did not."

If you can't patch immediately

These are runnable hardening commands. They reduce blast radius but they're not a replacement for the vendor patch.

Reject `../` and encoded variants at the reverse proxy

nginx:


location / {
    if ($request_uri ~* "(\.\./|%2e%2e/|%2e%2e%2f|%2f%2e%2e)") { return 403; }
    proxy_pass http://backend;
}

Apache mod_rewrite:


RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} (\.\./|%2e%2e/|%2f%2e%2e) [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F]

Rate-limit and log the affected endpoint at the reverse proxy


limit_req_zone $binary_remote_addr zone=admin:10m rate=10r/m;
location /<vulnerable-path> {
    limit_req zone=admin burst=5 nodelay;
    access_log /var/log/nginx/admin-access.log combined;
    proxy_pass http://backend;
}

How to verify the fix worked

Run the version probe again and confirm the running build matches the Fixed in row above.


# Confirm the running build matches the patched version listed by the vendor
# Example for Linux package installs:
dpkg -l | grep -i "openemr"   # Debian/Ubuntu
rpm -qa | grep -i "openemr"   # RHEL/CentOS/Rocky

Expected output: the package version should meet or exceed 8.0.0.2.

Then re-run any vulnerability scanner you used previously and confirm the finding for CVE-2026-25928 has cleared. Sweep your logs for the indicators of compromise listed in the vendor or CISA advisory, especially if the system was internet-reachable during the disclosure window.

Frequently asked questions

Is CVE-2026-25928 being actively exploited?