Red tape keeps Conficker on medical devices | Tech News on ZDNet

Red tape keeps Conficker on medical devices

By Stephanie Condon CBS News
Posted on ZDNet News: May 05, 2009 8:05:30 AM

WASHINGTON--The Conficker Internet virus has infected important computerized medical devices, but governmental red tape interfered with their repair, an organizer of an anti-virus working group told Congress on Friday...

"They should have never, ever been connected to the Internet," Joffe said.

Regulatory requirements mandated that the impacted hospitals would have to wait 90 days before the systems could be modified to remove the infections and vulnerabilities....

Policymakers need to be clear and open in their work with the private sector, Nojeim said, and should avoid giving anyone in the government – even the president – too much power over private networks. He urged the congressional panel to reject legislation from Senator Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., that would give the president power to shut down any critical network – federal or otherwise – in an emergency....

"Any such shutdown could also have far-reaching, unintended consequences for the economy and for the critical infrastructures themselves," he said. "To our knowledge, no circumstance has yet arisen that could justify a presidential order to limit or cut off Internet traffic to a particular critical infrastructure system when the operators of that system think it should not be limited or cut off."...

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