HIMSS cyber security report is turning up some curious vulnerabilities
By Admin | August 14, 2017
If it’s a machine on a network, it can be hacked. One man found that out when he went to get a cup of coffee and discovered a strange message on the coffee machine, a message he had just reported to IT from his computer.
But what does that have to do with health care, other than hospitals having coffee machines? It serves as a reminder that any device, from computers to people’s personal phones, can create vulnerabilities in an entire network, giving hackers and malware an open door into a system.
It also means that software providers can’t always be trusted to update securities. For example, Microsoft has a well known vulnerability known as SMBLoris which is almost 20 years old. And the company has yet to patch it. SMBLoris affects every Microsoft operating system since Windows 2000.
Many Android operating systems also have malware embedded into a line of code in the system library, which can impact every app on an Android device.
Hacking a coffee machine may not be a big deal, but once malware gets into the rest of the network, it could be an unwelcome wakeup call for everyone.
