- Jan 8, 2011
- 22,361
MIT Technology Review: Electric Therapy for Medical-Device Malware
Researchers show how to spot viruses on equipment like drug mixers and pregnancy monitors: by examining their power usage.
Never thought about that aspect, so I got to say, that's some impressive research.
Researchers show how to spot viruses on equipment like drug mixers and pregnancy monitors: by examining their power usage.
Hospital rooms beep and flash with many devices that are increasingly getting infected with malware (see “Computer Viruses Are ‘Rampant’ on Medical Devices in Hospitals”). But for several reasons, these gadgets are often incompatible with commercial security software
[...]
The malware detector first learned the devices’ normal power-consumption patterns. Then it was tested on machines deliberately infected with malware. It was able to detect abnormal activity more than 94 percent of the time when it had been trained to recognize that malware, and between 84 and 91 percent of the time with previously unseen malware.
WHY IT MATTERS
Thousands of medical devices are vulnerable to being compromised by common computer viruses.
Never thought about that aspect, so I got to say, that's some impressive research.