Terrifying malware modifies CT scans to make them look like brain cancer, imbeciles radiologists

Computed tomography is an essential tool that helps doctors detect various diseases. Healthcare providers rely on the accuracy of these technologies because a misdiagnosis could be fatal. Unfortunately, this vital technology is vulnerable to hackers. Researchers have recently developed malware that can add or remove false cancerous nodules in CT and MRI scanners.

Researchers at the Israel Center for Cyber ​​Security Research Center have developed malware that can modify CT and MRI scans. In the course of their research, they showed the radiologists real lung CT scans, 70 of which had been modified. At least three radiologists were fooled almost every time.

Radiologists diagnosed 99% cancer with images added nodules and said that one patient was 94% healthy with scans where the actual nodules had been removed. Radiologists continued to misinterpret the scans even when they learned that some of them were fake. The malware even managed to deceive another lung cancer screening software. This study focused mainly on computed tomography of the lungs, but it is thought that the malicious program would work with a wide variety of CT and MRI scans.

How could these researchers modify CT scans? CT and MRI scans are transmitted through image communication and archiving systems (PACS). In general, hospitals do not digitally sign their badyzes and PACS systems are often unencrypted. Many hospitals believe that hackers can not access their internal networks and therefore do not care about encryption. Researcher Yisroel Mirsky pointed out that hospitals are very concerned about privacy, but that [hospital] system itself, to which no ordinary person should have access in general, they tend to be quite lenient [about]. It's not … they do not care. It's just that their priorities are defined elsewhere. "

Unfortunately, many PACS systems are still connected to the Internet or are accessible through other connected hospital devices. Hackers could potentially insert the malware once connected. PACS encryption technology exists, but is generally incompatible with older PACS networks.

It's never fun to be a victim of a malware, but this can be especially dangerous when this malware can lead to a wrong diagnosis. The purpose of the study was to draw attention to the vulnerabilities of computed tomography and MRI machines. The researchers hope that hospitals will begin to allow end-to-end encryption on their PACS networks to prevent such dangerous attacks.