HIVENOVA MEDICAL CENTRE- A VULNERABLE LAB BUILT ON REAL EXPERIENCE

Earlier this year, I was admitted to a hospital that, in many ways, represented the future of healthcare delivery. The facility was equipped with some of the most advanced medical devices and smart infrastructure I had seen; a testament to the evolution of technology in patient care.
However, during my stay, I took a closer look at the hospital’s technological environment and discovered a critical gap: security. Out of personal curiosity and professional instinct, I conducted a passive assessment of some connected medical devices and discovered that many of them were accessible via standard mobile devices without any form of authentication. This raised serious concerns about the hospital’s exposure to potential cyber threats.

This experience highlighted a harsh reality: while healthcare institutions are rapidly adopting smart technologies, their cybersecurity posture often lags dangerously behind. An attacker with the right intent and knowledge could inflict tremendous damage from disrupting medical services to compromising patient data.
This realization became the inspiration for building HiveNova Medical Center—a deliberately vulnerable web application designed to simulate real-world hospital environments and the types of security flaws that can exist within them. The platform serves as a practical tool for training ethical hackers, demonstrating critical vulnerabilities, and emphasizing the urgent need for security in healthcare systems.

You Should Know:

1. Common Vulnerabilities in Medical IoT Devices

• Default Credentials: Many medical devices use default usernames/passwords (e.g., admin:admin).

  nmap -p 22,80,443 --script=http-default-accounts <target_IP>
  

• Unencrypted Communication: Devices may transmit data over HTTP instead of HTTPS.

  tshark -i eth0 -Y "http" -V | grep "POST /login"
  

• Outdated Firmware: Exploitable via known CVEs.

  searchsploit "Medical Device XYZ"
  

2. Testing Hospital Network Security

• Network Scanning:

  sudo nmap -sV -A -T4 <hospital_network_range>
  

• Exploiting Weak Protocols:

  metasploit > use auxiliary/scanner/ssl/openssl_heartbleed
  

• Dumping Patient Data (Ethical Hacking Demo):

  sqlmap -u "http://hospital-lab/login.php" --dump-all --batch
  

3. Securing Medical Systems

• Enforcing Strong Authentication:

  Linux PAM hardening 
  sudo nano /etc/pam.d/common-password 
  password requisite pam_pwquality.so retry=3 minlen=12 lcredit=-1 ucredit=-1 dcredit=-1 ocredit=-1 
  

• Encrypting Medical Data:

  openssl enc -aes-256-cbc -salt -in patient_records.txt -out encrypted_records.enc
  

• Network Segmentation:

  sudo iptables -A FORWARD -i eth0 -o eth1 -j DROP  Isolate IoT devices
  

What Undercode Say:

Healthcare cybersecurity is a critical yet often neglected field. Attackers can exploit weak IoT devices, unpatched systems, and poor network configurations to disrupt medical services or steal sensitive data. Ethical hackers must proactively assess hospital networks using tools like Nmap, Metasploit, and Wireshark, while administrators should enforce strict access controls, encryption, and regular penetration testing.

Expected Output:

A secure medical infrastructure where:

• All devices use strong authentication.
• Data transmissions are encrypted (TLS/SSL).
• Regular vulnerability assessments are conducted.

“Protecting healthcare systems isn’t just about compliance—it’s about saving lives.”

(No additional URLs provided as the article did not include relevant links.)

References:

Reported By: Daniel Anyemedu – Hackers Feeds
Extra Hub: Undercode MoN
Basic Verification: Pass ✅

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