During a recent cybersecurity
event in California, U.S., specialists offered a conference discussing the
consequences of a cyber attack on a hospital’s systems or medical devices connected
to a network; during the conference, experts stated that cyberattacks against
hospitals increased over 1200% last year. One of the main questions when
thinking about a situation of this kind is: can doctors save a patient if the
medical team has been hacked?
“We are trying to raise awareness about
these risks”, mentioned Jeff Tully and Christian Dameff, specialists in
hacking and cybersecurity issues, who were responsible for providing the
conference. “Most hospital centers do not even have the technological
resources and staff trained to detect a cyberattack
incident”, the experts added.
A clear example of these security weaknesses is
the WannaCry
ransomware outbreak, which emerged in 2017. Back then, this malware was
able to collapse the IT infrastructure of 16 hospitals in the UK; the government
of countries like the United States openly pointed to North Korea as
responsible for the attacks, citing political and financial motivations. “There
is no need to wait for someone to get hurt to implement the necessary
protections”, experts added.
The administration of hospital centers doesn’t matter
about cybersecurity, although 3 out of 4 health care companies have reported a
significant security incident.
Cybersecurity threats against this kind of
products made it necessary for the joint work of several companies dedicated to
the development of software for medical devices. The collective effort led to
the creation of the Medical Information Sharing Analysis Organization
(MedISAO), which, with the authorization of the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration (FDA), works as a platform to share information on
vulnerabilities in medical devices launched by multiple companies.
According to the experts of the International
Institute of Cyber Security (IICS), hackers do not attack the medical devices
themselves, but abuse the library that these devices use. This library is a
repository of information (such as source code) on the device that external
programmers can buy or use under license to work on other manufacturers’
devices. Malicious hackers scan libraries for vulnerabilities that can be
exploited, the more the vulnerable library is used, the greater the scope of a
hacker’s attack.
That’s why specialists express concern about
the potential damage that can be caused around the world: “No matter the
distance, if the device is connected to the Internet, it means it is vulnerable”,
experts concluded.
