MASSDEVICE ON CALL — A pair of patients at an Austrian hospital became addicted to morphine after one of them hacked their drug pumps to boost their dosage, according to a local report.
The unidentified patients had to be treated for addiction after becoming dependent on high doses of morphine. Their usage was so severe, according to the Austrian Times, that one of the patients suffered respiratory arrest.
The patients didn’t need sophisticated tools or savvy to hack the machines. They had simply learned control codes for the machines online, to help finding alcohol rehab Times reported. The hospital has since taken steps to update its drug pumps with new codes and is gradually swapping out all of the older pumps with newer devices that have unmodifiable codes.
The Austrian Federal Agency for Safety & Heath Care at the Ministry for Health also issued a memo to device makers about the potential for manipulation and misuse due to insufficient authentication.
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