Conficker Worm Hits U.S. Hospitals, Infecting Computers and Equipment

Cnet says that hundreds of critical hospital devices across the U.S. have been infected by the Conficker worm. The number of hospitals affected wasn’t disclosed, but the problem isn’t thought to be widespread.

Cybersecurity expert Marcus Sachs broke the news at a security conference in San Francisco, raising the question of what would happen if this were to happen to millions of machines in the medical industry. According to sachs, the devices affected were hospital computers and devices used to control critical equipment, such as heart monitors and MRI machines.

No one is quite sure how the computers acquired the worms to begin with, but most of the Windows 2000/NT machines were to old to benefit from Microsoft’s October patch which fixed many of the vulnerabilities Conficker preyed on. [Cnet via Slashdot]