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Over 1,400 Vulnerabilities Found In Automated Medical Supply System
An anonymous reader writes: Security researchers have discovered 1,418 vulnerabilities in CareFusion's Pyxis SupplyStation system -- automated cabinets used to dispense medical supplies -- that are still being used in the healthcare and public health sectors in the US and around the world. The vulnerabilities can be exploited remotely by attackers with low skills, and exploits that target these vulnerabilities are publicly available. Things already seem to be getting out hand.
Medical and healthcare companies consistently seem to have *no idea* whatsoever about security, and *no idea* that they actually need to hire someone who knows security.
Anything with a computer in it needs to take into account security. If you're putting code into your product and don't know security and aren't hiring someone who does, you're doing it wrong. Medical devices, cars, even Bluetooth toilets. If it communicates with the outside world or is exposed to users who aren't authorized full control over the device, it needs security. If you don't do it, your product is a ticking time bomb waiting for a researcher, if you're lucky, or a malicious attacker, if you aren't, to notice the lack of security. This will keep happening until everyone gets the message.
No Shit sherlock.
Windows XP and Windows 2003 systems are prone to all sorts of horrible security flaws. Reading the Fucking Article I see that the newer, non EOL, equipment isn't prone to any of these problems.
I wonder how many vulnerabilities are in older Cisco routers that haven't been patched since 2007?
Wheel of Time: Book by Book and Sumview (summary review) Bigdady92 style: http://bigdady92.blogspot.com/
I worked at a competitor of Pyxis who created similar automated drug dispensing cabinets, and the market research at the time was that they all were pretty insecure. When I left my company they were dealing with a defect where anyone with a screwdriver could bypass the locking mechanism of our newest model (meant for the area where the schedule 2 drugs were kept).
At the time (almost 10 years ago) these devices were meant to help with inventory management, not to be ultra-secure safes. Anyone with even moderate training using these devices could steal drugs if they wanted. Most thieves were caught only because of the sheer volume of drugs they stole over months or even years.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
. . . . year or two back, my oldest daughter entered a program to learn the "EPIC" medical records system. Now, admittedly, we're a geekhaus, my daughters were doing computers at age 5, and my youngest managed to hack the oldest by examining her browser cache at age 8.
But she came back from the first day or two of training, shaking HER head. Not only was there no folder security, but, at least as configured there, every user was an admin.. Each of which could mess with another's files and account settings.
Worse still, they were being trained at the site where the system was being hosted for production. No physical security. No backup power: in fact, zero redundancy whatsoever. And data backup ? "What's that ?"
She wrote up a 2-page summary of problems SHE saw (and her training was in Medical Administration, although she DID learn Security from me. . .). She sends it to the POC at the Hospital the system was in the process of being installed for. . . .and the EPIC people dropped her from the course.
There's a cherry on the top of this Sundae of Fail: she was eventually hired by the Hospital as, surprisingly enough, a Ward Medical Admin. And the IT Department comes to HER for help and suggestions. . . .
No clue. . . but as MUMPS is now 50 years old, it's entirely possible that it was built without multi-user systems in mind. Looking at the basic description in Wikipedia, and perusing the Annotated MUMPS standard, I don't even see provisions for accounts, much less security. . .
I don't know about you, but I'd be proud as hell if I'd managed to write an application that had 1400+ vulnerabilities.
It must have taken a lot of work and testing to make sure it was that porous and vulnerable. I mean, just think of all the work involved in taking out all of the bounds checking, sanity tests, input validation, error checking, etc etc.
IF ($INPUT){
GRANT FULL ADMIN SUPERUSER ACCESS OMG;
}ELSE{
GRANT FULL ADMIN SUPERUSER ACCESS OMG;
}
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
I've seen this problem in many organizations run by people who consider themselves to be in a "profession" like doctors, lawyers, and to a varied extent anyone with a non-computer PhD. The attitude seems to be that "I am smart, so I can figure this out without paying someone who knows what they're doing, and I'll do a better and less expensive job." This applies to many aspects of running an organization, with IT and finance/budget being two very egregious areas. I've seen many a small R&D company fail because its principle owners/operators try to do the finance/budget side after the company has become larger than a couple of people, and lots of computer security issues in companies where this "we can do it all" attitude holds sway. They can't quite see that people pay them for their expertise, so why should they balk at paying other people for expertise they don't themselves have. I've been expecting a security meltdown at hospitals and medical facilities ever since the big money pushed in a few years ago by the Government to drag medical IT into at least the last decade of the 20th century. This will be quite the roller-coaster ride.