Ambulances turned away as computer virus infects medical center computers | Hacker News Reader

Ambulances turned away as computer virus infects medical center computers

ajc.com

35 pointspwg7 comments

>The infection, an “I.T. service interruption virus,” has affected systems intermittently, Okun said. Viruses are not an infrequent occurrence at the hospital, she said, but it’s never seen anything like this one.

"Not infrequent"? Imagine if one of those was scraping data and sending it somewhere else, rendering HIPAA and the various security requirements entirely moot.

I really wish more people knew more about computers. Such rampant ignorance gives the few who know even a little such incredible ability to abuse, we should really be taking steps to improve things.

You think your corporate IT department sucks? You haven't seen anything till you examined the technology architecture of a hospital. Many are still running copies of unpatched Windows XP with no virus scanner in sight.

Sure your doctor may be running around with an iPad doing medical diagnosis but the vast majority are running on antiquated systems interfacing with unmaintainable hodgepodge data stores.

Might I add the hospitals probably paid millions of dollars for these systems.

Might I add the hospitals probably paid millions of dollars for these systems.

And in many cases, those systems were required in order to support the requirements for Medicare/Medicaid reimbursement. There is typically an entire department dedicated to producing the reports that the government requires.

An "I.T. service interruption virus"? This combination of cluelessness about and total dependence upon computers is starting to be a serious problem.

Would this kind of problem be less prevalent if everything was run on a linux-based OS? I feel Ubuntu's GUI is friendly enough for most people working in the hospital, and in general there wouldn't be as many viruses and the like.

Or are there lacks of software for the health industry when it comes to linux distros...? Or some sort of strange bureaucratic thing that stops this...

1) Increase Linux's usage share, and we will see a greater share of Linux exploits and malware. Case in point: Mozilla Firefox.

2) New versions of Windows have long retained backward compatibility with older applications (the upgrade from 98/ME to XP an exception largely necessary for security).

Just as importantly, Microsoft supports their operating systems for at least ten years after their initial release dates. In contrast, Ubuntu LTS releases are only supported for five years (and until 12.04 comes out, only three years on the desktop).

Keep in mind that upgrading software costs a business money, and rewriting (parts of) it to run on a totally different OS costs even more. No wonder why Windows is the business OS of choice.

"Increase Linux's usage share, and we will see a greater share of Linux exploits and malware. Case in point: Mozilla Firefox."

Well, that is the main line a windows apologist would use. This does not make the main point invalid. Hospitals and such professional institutes can use a less known OS. Because what they mostly use is a dedicated crapy VB application. Yet, I think main problem here is not the OS but archaic Windows based Desktop applications.

I can offer one exit from this mess,

1- Switch all your apps to Browser only. 2- Use dumb terminals (dump windows OS and office if possible. too costly) 2- Use a cloud service or a browser based server application that has a web interface for your documentation needs.

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