NYT: A Heart Device Is Found Vulnerable to Hacker Attacks

Jon » 12 March 2008 » In Comms, FDA, medical devices, risk assessment »

To the long list of objects vulnerable to attack by computer hackers, add the human heart.The threat seems largely theoretical. But a team of computer security researchers plans to report Wednesday that it had been able to gain wireless access to a combination heart defibrillator and pacemaker.

They were able to reprogram it to shut down and to deliver jolts of electricity that would potentially be fatal — if the device had been in a person. In this case, the researcher were hacking into a device in a laboratory.

Barnaby J. Feder, “A Heart Device Is Found Vulnerable to Hacker Attacks, The New York Times

Tags: , FCC, FDA, Medtronic, pacemaker, wireless devices

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