Hackers can send fatal dose to hospital drug pumps

When security researcher Billy Rios reported earlier this year that he'd found vulnerabilities in a popular drug infusion pump that would allow a hacker to raise the dosage limit on medication delivered to patients, there was little cause for concern. Altering the allowable limits of a particular drug simply meant that if a caregiver accidentally instructed the pump to give too high or too low a dosage, the pump wouldn't issue an alert. This seemed much less alarming than if the pumps had vulnerabilities that would allow a hacker to actually alter the dosage itself.