Citations Needed -
A podcast about the media, power, PR, and the history of bullshit.
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Thursday, 31 August 2017
quote [ Talk about painful software updates. An estimated 465,000 people in the US are getting notices that they should update the firmware that runs their life-sustaining pacemakers from Abbott Laboratories or risk falling victim to potentially fatal hacks. "If there were a successful attack, an unauthorized individual could gain access and issue commands to the implanted medical device through RF transmission capability, and those unauthorized commands could modify device settings (e.g., stop pacing) or impact device functionality," Abbott representatives wrote. The update will require patients to visit a clinic where doctors will put the pacemakers in backup mode while the firmware is being patched. ]
Patch notes: "This system software update improves the quality of the system performance"
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Comments
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SnappyNipples said @ 7:48pm GMT on 31st Aug
[Score:1 Funny]
Wardriving pacemakers, is this a thing now?
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Bruceski said @ 8:23pm GMT on 31st Aug
At least it requires direct access and it's not an Internet of Things wifi connection, right?
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Ankylosaur said @ 8:28pm GMT on 31st Aug
You need to be within 50 feet to access it.
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5th Earth said @ 9:36pm GMT on 31st Aug
Medical device security has been a shambles for a while now. The hacker community has been screaming about it for years, especially since this is a case where it can literally be a life-or-death matter.
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Hugh E. said @ 10:25pm GMT on 31st Aug
Be realistic. Where are these companies supposed to find the money for that kind of security and still stay in business?
Billions are squandered because, in recent years, insurers have tended to pay whatever hospitals, the best-paid specialists, drug-makers, device-makers and others choose to charge for their services and products, without asking: “is the patient benefiting?” We know that one-third of our healthcare dollars are wasted on unnecessary tests, ineffective often unproven procedures and cutting edge drugs and devices that, too often, are no better than older safer products. |
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5th Earth said @ 4:10am GMT on 1st Sep
[Score:1 Underrated]
Tell that to the Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles. Security vulnerabilities in Hospitals are being successfully exploited in the real world with major consequences. This is not a hypothetical threat.
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lilmookieesquire said @ 5:19am GMT on 1st Sep
well after someone dies and their family sues the hospital that family might have enough money to fund security measures at another hospital.
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lilmookieesquire said @ 3:10am GMT on 3rd Sep
It's literally a national security issue. If there is a war or riot or something our hospitals can be effectively shut down or even used to attack other infrastructure.
The ease in which people can access hospitals and rooms and stick USB devices in equipment is ridiculously easy |
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rylex said @ 9:50pm GMT on 31st Aug
So when the device fails due to a software bug, thus leading to someone's death, they can claim it's "working as intended"
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