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Medicine Security

Hacking Medical Mannequins 35

An anonymous reader writes: A team of researchers at the University of South Alabama is investigating potential breaches of medical devices used in training, taking the mannequin iStan as its prime target in its scenario-based research. Identifying the network security solution and network protocol as the vulnerable components, the team was able to carry out brute force attacks against the router PIN, and denial of service (DDoS) attacks, using open source tools such as BackTrack.
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Hacking Medical Mannequins

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  • and get yourself free.
  • by bleh-of-the-huns ( 17740 ) on Wednesday September 02, 2015 @01:19PM (#50445565)

    It is the name of a collection of tools, and it's not even called that anymore, it's Kali.

    • by plover ( 150551 )

      From the students' paper:

      Experiment Configuration

      The student team had freedom to choose any network traffic capture tool for their study. The tools and environment used by the students included a Lenovo attack laptop running Microsoft Windows 8.1 Pro, Sun Virtual box (version: 4.3.8) with BackTrack 5 Release 3, iStan medical mannequin, iStan laptop running OSX Lepord (version: 10.5.2), iStan Muse software (version: 2.1), and a monitor used to display the mannequin’s vitals to the medical trainees utilizing Touch Pro display software 2.0

      They used a BackTrack distro. Perhaps your problem is Slashdot's editor referring to what would more properly be called a "toolbox full of tools" as simply "tools"?

      My problem isn't the description at all. It's that the front end to iStan runs in Adobe Flash, and these students somehow got credit for "hacking" it. That's like asking a 300# professional football lineman to tackle a grade school quarterback during a game of flag football.

  • HYPE (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 02, 2015 @01:26PM (#50445627)

    ‘If medical training environments are breached, the long term ripple effect on the medical profession, potentially, impacts thousands of lives due to incorrect analysis of life threatening critical data by medical personnel.’

    This is such hyperbolic bullshit.

    The iStan is always operated by a trainer. The trainer would know it was misbehaving.

    It's like saying that since med students sometimes learn by watching training material on a TV... and look - with a simple remote control, we can CHANGE THE CHANNEL ON THE TV! MY GOD! IMPACT THOUSANDS OF LIVES!!!

    Source: I have a brain.

  • iStan hacked! (Score:2, Flamebait)

    by grub ( 11606 )

    The terrorist hackers programmed iStan to expand it anus and rectum to the maximum size then changed its MOTD to "iGoatse."

    Rest not, evildoers, you will be extinguished in puff of drone-dropped Freedom Smoke.
  • by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday September 02, 2015 @01:59PM (#50445849)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by Anonymous Coward

    A vulnerable mannequin was brutally penetrated by a team of researchers from the University of South Alabama. The attackers spent several hours pounding every port of the victim with their tools.

  • by Bodhammer ( 559311 ) on Wednesday September 02, 2015 @02:38PM (#50446095)
  • Was it a DDoS or a Denial of Service attack? They are different...

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Ok, Stan the training dummy is hackable.

    So why bother?

    No challenge, so no bragging rights.
    Not very useful except as a prank on nursing students.

    Perhaps as a way to let an inept student pass a nursing exam?
    Seems far fetched.

    Maybe as a demonstration that other medical stuff that matters might also be hackable.
    And of course as an excuse to publish a paper.

  • This has gone too far. If you're making life-size latex love dolls, say so.

You are always doing something marginal when the boss drops by your desk.

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