If you thought that antibiotic resistant infections were the only sort of bug you had to worry about when you are hospitalized then this story on Wired is not for you. Scott Erven is head of information security for Essentia Health which operates a network of 100 facilities in the US and he has released some shocking news about the hackability of hospital equipment. It would seem that almost every life saving device is hackable, in many cases quite easily hacked by remote. Implantable defibrillators can be set off by an attacker or worse, prevented from shocking a heart when it should, drug infusion pumps can have the delivered dosage changed, maximum radiation levels delivered by CT scans can be changed and a host of other rather terrifying vulnerabilities make going to the hospital even more anxiety inducing than it already was. Your best bet is to try to stay healthy.
"When Scott Erven was given free rein to roam through all of the medical equipment used at a large chain of Midwest health care facilities, he knew he would find security problems–but he wasn’t prepared for just how bad it would be."
Here is some more Tech News from around the web:
- If we are in another tech bubble, the FCC just burst it @ The Inquirer
- Bevy of tech behemoths aim to plug the next Heartbleed with DOLLARS @ The Register
- Google improved its HTTPS connections for Chrome for Android in February @ The Inquirer
- Reg probe bombshell: How we HACKED mobile voicemail without a PIN @ The Register
- There is Only One Internet @ Techgage
- How to Build an Arduino Pest Repeller on Linux (Part 1) @ Linux.com
Nice Share!
I believe this as
Nice Share!
I believe this as a HAM Radio Tech guy told me about it as he spoke about his own implantable defibrillator. I am surprised that he spoke about it with such ease. Then again, he probably accepted the fact as it is and other challenges when facing various radio waves. It was an interesting talk, however very scary as a listener.
A MRI machine with its
A MRI machine with its superconducting magnets, Those better be damn hack proof, ever read the story about the LHC superconducting magnet failure, things get hot fast! The helium would take on this heat and rapidly expand, you could wind up frozen and blown apart, then cooked to well done in an instent.
I just realized this is
I just realized this is someone from a local college. This is more than a little worrying, though I am glad to know that the local health care is researching this.