In your scenario, there's protection at a societal level: manslaughter/homicide law.
Obviously their intent, the jurisdiction, their training/knowledge, and what sort of changes they attempted would matter in terms of how they were charged, prosecuted, etc.
If the device manufacturer updates software and injures or kills someone, they're liable on a criminal and/or civil level.
Before anyone starts rambling about how "they'll just calculate out their liability vs cost of proper software engineering blah blah"...in a civil lawsuit, at least in the US, the punitive portion of damages is for the express purpose of penalizing the defendant for shitty behavior, beyond actual damages, to discourage them and others from doing such a thing again.
McDonalds was slammed hard in the infamous coffee-scald case with a huge punitive portion. Before suing, the victim asked merely for medical expenses - nothing for the (enormous) pain and suffering from her genital burns. McDonalds told her to fuck off.
The jury was (to put it mildly) enraged on a number of counts: McD's knew their coffee was served well above industry standard temperatures, knew they'd injured people, and refused a reasonable request for damages.
Obviously their intent, the jurisdiction, their training/knowledge, and what sort of changes they attempted would matter in terms of how they were charged, prosecuted, etc.
If the device manufacturer updates software and injures or kills someone, they're liable on a criminal and/or civil level.
Before anyone starts rambling about how "they'll just calculate out their liability vs cost of proper software engineering blah blah"...in a civil lawsuit, at least in the US, the punitive portion of damages is for the express purpose of penalizing the defendant for shitty behavior, beyond actual damages, to discourage them and others from doing such a thing again.
McDonalds was slammed hard in the infamous coffee-scald case with a huge punitive portion. Before suing, the victim asked merely for medical expenses - nothing for the (enormous) pain and suffering from her genital burns. McDonalds told her to fuck off.
The jury was (to put it mildly) enraged on a number of counts: McD's knew their coffee was served well above industry standard temperatures, knew they'd injured people, and refused a reasonable request for damages.