Cisco Talos reveals “multiple vulnerabilities” in hardware common at hospitals.
Today, Cisco's Talos security research group
revealed five security vulnerabilities in
NeuroWorks, a Windows-based software that is used in multiple electroencephalogram systems sold by Nautus. The Windows-based Natus Xltek NeuroWorks 8 software uses hospitals' Ethernet networks to connect to EEG devices and integrate with patient data systems, and it is vulnerable to attacks that could allow remote code execution—allowing an attacker to gain access to the data on the device and to other systems on the hospital network—and denial of service. The systems hosting the software could then be used to stage wider attacks on hospital networks.
Four parts of the software in NeuroWorks are vulnerable to buffer overflows that could be used by an attacker remotely accessing the system to drop commands into the memory of the console with crafted network packets. Another vulnerability allows for a remote attacker to execute a denial of service attack against EEG devices. Nautus has issued a patch for the bugs. Unfortunately, based on the previous history of vulnerable medical devices, it's likely that these systems will remain in use—unpatched—by hundreds of hospitals.
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