US-CERT Warns of Remotely Exploitable Bugs in Medical Devices

US-CERT has issued an advisory for vulnerabilities in Medtronic's Valleylab FT10 and Valleylab FX8 Energy Platforms, both key surgical equipment that could be remotely exploited by a low-skill attacker. Vulnerabilities also affect Valleylab Exchange Client, officials report.

The advisory details three vulnerabilities. One is the use of hard-coded credentials (CVE-2019-13543). Affected devices use multiple sets of hard-coded credentials; if discovered, they could be used to read files on the equipment. The flaw has been assigned a CVSS base score of 5.8.

These products also use a reversible one-way hash for OS password hashing. While interactive, network-based logons are disabled. An attacker could use other vulnerabilities disclosed to gain local shell access and obtain these hashes. This flaw (CVE-2019-13539) has a CVSS score of 7.0.

Improper input validation (CVE-2019-3464 and CVE-2019-3463) marks the third type of vulnerability. The affected devices use a vulnerable version of the rssh utility to enable file uploads, which could give an attacker administrative access to files or the ability to execute arbitrary code. This vulnerability has been given a CVSS score of 9.8.

The affected medical devices' network connections are disabled by default, officials report, and the Ethernet port is disabled upon reboot. However, network connectivity is often enabled.

Until updates can be applied, Medtronic advises users to disconnect affected products from IP networks or segregate the networks so devices aren't accessible from the Internet. Software updates are now available for the FT10 platform and will be available for the FX8 in early 2020.

Read the full advisory here.

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