Boston Scientific ZOOM LATITUDE PRM Vulnerabilities

OVERVIEW

Researchers Jonathan Butts and Billy Rios of Whitescope have identified two vulnerabilities in Boston Scientific’s ZOOM LATITUDE Programmer/Recorder/Monitor (PRM) – Model 3120. Boston Scientific has provided compensating controls to reduce the risk of exploitation.

AFFECTED PRODUCTS

The following ZOOM LATITUDE PRM versions are affected:

• ZOOM LATITUDE PRM – Model 3120, all versions.

IMPACT

Successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities may allow an attacker with physical access to obtain patient health information (PHI). The affected device is not designed to be network accessible.

Impact to individual organizations depends on many factors that are unique to each organization. NCCIC/ICS-CERT recommends that organizations evaluate the impact of these vulnerabilities based on their operational environment and specific clinical usage.

BACKGROUND

Boston Scientific is a US-based company that is headquartered in Marlborough, Massachusetts.

The affected products, ZOOM LATITUDE PRMs, are portable cardiac rhythm management systems used to communicate with implanted pacemakers and defibrillators. According to Boston Scientific, ZOOM LATITUDE PRMs are deployed across the Healthcare and Public Health sector. Boston Scientific asserts that these products are used worldwide.

VULNERABILITY CHARACTERIZATION

VULNERABILITY OVERVIEW

The affected device uses a hard-coded cryptographic key to encrypt PHI prior to having it transferred to removable media.

CVE-2017-14014b. NVD, https://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2017-14014, NIST uses this advisory to create the CVE web site report. This web site will be active sometime after publication of this advisory. has been assigned to this vulnerability. A CVSS v3 base score of 4.6 has been assigned; the CVSS vector string is (AV:P/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N).c. CVSS Calculator, https://www.first.org/cvss/calculator/3.0#CVSS:3.0/AV:P/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N, web site last accessed October 19, 2017.

The affected device does not encrypt PHI at rest.

CVE-2017-14012e. NVD, https://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2017-14012, NIST uses this advisory to create the CVE web site report. This web site will be active sometime after publication of this advisory. has been assigned to this vulnerability. A CVSS v3 base score of 4.6 has been assigned; the CVSS vector string is (AV:P/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N).f. CVSS Calculator, https://www.first.org/cvss/calculator/3.0#CVSS:3.0/AV:P/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N, web site last accessed October 19, 2017.

VULNERABILITY DETAILS

EXPLOITABILITY

These vulnerabilities are not remotely exploitable and require physical access.

EXISTENCE OF EXPLOIT

No known public exploits specifically target these vulnerabilities.

DIFFICULTY

An attacker with a low skill would be able to exploit these vulnerabilities.

MITIGATION

Boston Scientific will not be issuing a product update to address the identified vulnerabilities in the ZOOM LATITUDE PRM – Model 3120. Boston Scientific has identified compensating controls to reduce the risk of exploitation and recommends that users implement the following measures:

• Control access to the device and ensure all access is properly inventoried,
• Maintain the device in a secure or locked location when not in use, and
• Remove PHI prior to retiring or removing the device from the facility. Instructions for removing PHI are outlined in the operator’s manual.

ICS-CERT also provides a section for security recommended practices on the ICS-CERT web page at http://ics-cert.us-cert.gov/content/recommended-practices. ICS-CERT reminds organizations to perform proper impact analysis and risk assessment prior to deploying defensive measures.

Additional mitigation guidance and recommended practices are publicly available in the ICS‑CERT Technical Information Paper, ICS-TIP-12-146-01B--Targeted Cyber Intrusion Detection and Mitigation Strategies, that is available for download from the ICS-CERT web site (http://ics-cert.us-cert.gov/).

Organizations observing any suspected malicious activity should follow their established internal procedures and report their findings to ICS-CERT for tracking and correlation against other incidents.