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Hospital Equipment Infected With Conficker

Posted by timothy on from the would-never-happen-with-electronic-medical-records dept.

nandemoari writes "Recently, the Conficker/Downadup worm infected several hundred machines and critical medical equipment in an undisclosed number of US hospitals. The attacks were not widespread; however, Marcus Sachs, director of the SANS Internet Storm Center, told CNET News that it raises the awareness of what we would do if there were millions of computers infected in hospitals or in critical infrastructure locations. It's not clear how the devices (including heart monitors, MRI machines and PCs) got infected. Infected computers were running Windows NT and Windows 2000 in a local area network (LAN) that wasn't supposed to be Internet accessible, but the LAN was connected to one with direct Internet access. A patch was released by Microsoft last October that fixes the problem, but the computers infected were reportedly too old to be patched."

10 of 289 comments (clear)

  1. Well... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Funny

    I guess that's the other meaning of "Nosocomial infection"...

  2. Eeesh... by Chasmyr · · Score: 2, Funny

    Hospital equipment running Windows NT... Virus or no, I wouldn't want my life to depend on that machine. "Yeah, I hooked him up to the EKG and it just keeps saying device not recognized."

    1. Re:Eeesh... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      That's better than being hooked up to Windows Vista... "Heart is trying to beat - allow or deny?"

  3. bugs on hospital computers by Cederic · · Score: 3, Funny

    Suddenly I have this horrible urge to write a virus called "Swine Flu" that only attacks medical systems..

  4. New Sources of SPAM! by happy_place · · Score: 3, Funny

    This SPAM was brought to you by a heart monitor!

    --
    http://www.beanleafpress.com
  5. Mabey it just wasn't a good time to upgrade? by Chasmyr · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Hi it says I need to upgrade my RAM, what is that?"... "RAM is a part of your computer, if you have more of it, you can expect it to run faster... tell me what your computer is running and I'll see if I can help you out."... "Uh, right now the computer is running Bob's heart and lungs for him."

  6. Swine flu? by Sockatume · · Score: 5, Funny

    So, we have Conficker infecting hospitals now. And meanwhile, after Conficker's payload goes live, there's a massive outbreak of swine flu. And conficker spreads spam... spam is a pork product... COINCIDENCE?!

    --
    No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
    1. Re:Swine flu? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Yes.

  7. Re:Does it bother anyone else..... by interkin3tic · · Score: 2, Funny

    Newer isn't always better.

    I disagree, think of how much better those machines would be running if they used vista!

  8. Re:Old Computers by Canazza · · Score: 2, Funny

    I don't know why, but i read "PACS" as "Particle Accelerator Cannons" - god forbid anything at CERN gets Conficker.

    --
    It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for being subtle.