Hospital medical devices that connect to PCs, such as computerized implanted defibrillators, insulin pumps and fetal monitors, are susceptible to computer viruses.
Medical equipment that are hooked up to systems running older versions of Windows that aren’t allowed to modify or upgrade are even more vulnerable to malware attacks, Forbes reports. Furthermore, U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations, forbids hospitals from adding antivirus protection to the computers. Because of this, systems have to be taken offline, often weekly, to remove the malware.
In September, the Government Accountability Office asked the FDA to address the issue.
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