- Jun 9, 2013
- 6,720
Life support machines can be the difference between the recovery of a patient and the loss of a life. Imagine the implications of a poorly coded worm causing a respirator to turn on and off intermittently while connected to a loved one.
This issue was all too real for an American hospital when malware was injected through the neo natal intensive care unit to gain back access to a hospital network. The poor coding in the worm caused an error with a system of heart monitors. Premature babies went unmonitored for potentially fatal periods of time.
Why would anyone attack a hospital?
The data stored within healthcare networks remains a primary target for attackers on a global basis. By accessing a hospital network through a medical device, such as the neonatal intensive care ward heart monitors, attackers can infect medical devices with malware, then move laterally through hospital networks to steal confidential data.
Once criminals have hold of the data, they can easily keep that data hostage. Large ransoms are demanded in order to release this patient data and to unlock vital administrative systems. Hospitals have no choice but to pay if they wish to continue to offer any services.
An unfortunate outcome of these kinds of malware attacks is the unpredictable affect the worm will have on the machines they infect, such as turning heart rate monitors on and off again without warning.
According to IBM, healthcare has become the #1 most attacked industry in 2015, replacing financial services, which was the leader just two years ago. Data held for ransom is incredibly lucrative for cyber criminals. A prime example of how stolen patient data can provide a huge payday comes from the news that a hacker dubbed “thedarkoverlord” is reportedly trying to sell 655,000 patient records on an illegal online data market
Full Article. The alarming state of computer security in healthcare
This issue was all too real for an American hospital when malware was injected through the neo natal intensive care unit to gain back access to a hospital network. The poor coding in the worm caused an error with a system of heart monitors. Premature babies went unmonitored for potentially fatal periods of time.
Why would anyone attack a hospital?
The data stored within healthcare networks remains a primary target for attackers on a global basis. By accessing a hospital network through a medical device, such as the neonatal intensive care ward heart monitors, attackers can infect medical devices with malware, then move laterally through hospital networks to steal confidential data.
Once criminals have hold of the data, they can easily keep that data hostage. Large ransoms are demanded in order to release this patient data and to unlock vital administrative systems. Hospitals have no choice but to pay if they wish to continue to offer any services.
An unfortunate outcome of these kinds of malware attacks is the unpredictable affect the worm will have on the machines they infect, such as turning heart rate monitors on and off again without warning.
According to IBM, healthcare has become the #1 most attacked industry in 2015, replacing financial services, which was the leader just two years ago. Data held for ransom is incredibly lucrative for cyber criminals. A prime example of how stolen patient data can provide a huge payday comes from the news that a hacker dubbed “thedarkoverlord” is reportedly trying to sell 655,000 patient records on an illegal online data market
Full Article. The alarming state of computer security in healthcare
