Years after exploits for medical devices went from impressive to routine to a running joke.
There may be a more terrible IT sub-industry than health care IT. But that bar is very low to start with. And now the overworked, competent, people are looking at this and screaming into their alcoholism. IoT is stupid. I am now of the mind that anything that is vital to care should never touch a network. And the next round of appliances I get will NOT have an internet connection.
This is the thing that baffles me. The devices I worked on weren't crazy-sophisticated - well, maybe they were. Rate-sensitive pacemakers with sensing shock-pace atrial defibrillation are pretty sophisticated. Funny, I typed "most sophisticated implantable devices" into Google and Business Insider (because of course Business Insider) threw up a list with worthless shit like breast implants but they also topped their list with ICDs and ran with a picture of the very one I helped design. Now. The internals of that device have probably changed. But probably not that much. The externals are identical to what I worked on. In 1996. In that amount of time, the device has gone from being an InControl to being a Guidant to being a Johnson & Johnson to being a Guidant again. And in that time we've gone from IR wireless to bluetooth to wireless USB to wifi to NFC. If you had that thing put in back in '96, our models suggest you're ten years dead. BUT it's not unreasonable to expect medical professionals to interact with ten-year-old technology, either. My grandfather had his hip replaced in '89. He had half of it replaced again in '09, with the same model from the same manufacturer, so that they only had to fuck up half as many bones getting it back in. I have no idea why you need to future-proof a device with an anticipated life of under ten years needs software updates, especially considering they're not exactly sophisticated by the standards of modern computing. I mean, you're gonna have to get physical access to it in order to change the battery every 5-7 years anyway.I am now of the mind that anything that is vital to care should never touch a network
Pacemakers logging to the doctor and the doctor being able to tweak the pacemaker's settings without opening the patient up are probably both useful things. I suspect hospitals will start reevaluating how useful the first time we see pacemaker ransomware. They aren't just talking about implantable devices though.
Absolutely. But bloody hell they sure as shit don't need to be on the network. That absolutely should not ever, ever work. Absolutely. But bloody hell they sure as shit don't need to be on the network.Pacemakers logging to the doctor and the doctor being able to tweak the pacemaker's settings without opening the patient up are probably both useful things.
I suspect hospitals will start reevaluating how useful the first time we see pacemaker ransomware.
They aren't just talking about implantable devices though.
Utter bullshit. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/09/business/dealbook/hedge-fund-and-cybersecurity-firm-team-up-to-short-sell-device-maker.html Meanwhile, the actual exploit has been scrubbed off even Wayback Machine, probably because in general, to update a pacemaker you have to sit a device on the patient's fucking shirt.
Clueless fuckwits, so narcissistically absorbed in their own mental diarrhoea, they won't take informed advice from people who know what they're talking about.
It is, but there's no "software manual" with most devices. The FDA is arguing for something like: - Heartrate sensing is accomplished via the 2nd ring terminal of the shock/pace lead and both terminals of the pace2 lead. It uses a bla bla bla loop informed by logic from the bla blah. - fibrillation sensing is accomplished via both terminals on the afib lead. It uses blah blah. - Updating is accomplished using our software kit, available at www.acmemed.com/mr_shocky. In order to interface with the device you must have performed a chest x-ray on the patient in order to read the two-factor authentication, which changes every thirty minutes. Thump the patient hard in the chest with "shave and a haircut" and set your device to search for bluetooth device "MR_SHOCK_E". Pair using the 2FA code provided in the upper left corner of the device on the x-ray. - blah blah blahThis is an implantable cardioverter device (ICD). It has heartrate sensing, fibrillation sensing and a cardiological self-updating envelope. It can be updated via Bluetooth 5.0 with the password "9999."