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Researchers in cyber security have created a computer virus that can add false tumors to images to be scanned.
During laboratory tests, the malware modified 70 images and was able to convince three radiologists to believe that their patients were suffering from cancer.
Altered images have also been successful in misleading automated screening systems.
The Israeli team has developed malicious software to show how easy it is to bypbad security protections for diagnostic equipment.
The program was able to convincingly add false malignant growths to lung images taken by MRI and CT scanners.
Researchers, from the cybersecurity center of Ben Gurion University, said the malicious program could also suppress malignant growths of image files in order to prevent targeted patients from getting the care they have need.
The targeted images were lung scans, but the malware could be tuned to produce other false conditions such as brain tumors, blood clots, fractures or spinal problems, according to the Washington Post, who reported on the research.
Images and scans are vulnerable, the researchers said, as the files were usually not digitally signed or encrypted. This means that any change would be hard to spot.
The researchers suggested that security loopholes could be exploited to sow doubt about the health of government officials, for sabotage searches, to commit insurance fraud or as part of a terrorist attack. .
In addition, weaknesses in the way hospitals and health centers protect their networks could give attackers easy access.
One of the researchers said that hospitals were attentive to sharing sensitive data beyond their borders, but much less when they handle data internally.
"What happens in the hospital system itself, which no ordinary person should have access to in general, they tend to be quite lenient," Yisroel Mirsky told the Washington Post.
Better use of encryption and digital signatures could help hospitals avoid problems if cyber attackers try to corrupt images, he added.
Hospitals and other health care facilities are a favorite target of cyber-attackers. Many of them have been victims of ransomware malware that encrypts files and only returns them when victims pay.
The NHS was hit hard in 2017 by the WannaCry ransomware that left many hospitals struggling to recover data.
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