McAfee hacker says medtronic insulin pumps vulnerable to attack
April 11, 2012 | Source: Bloomberg
Insulin pump (credit: Medtronic)
Some Medtronic insulin pumps are vulnerable to a hacking attack that could let someone break into the devices from 300 feet away, disable security alarms, acquire the serial number, and force them to dispense fatal insulin doses directly into diabetics’ bloodstreams, according to McAfee Inc. computer-security researcher Barnaby Jack.
Research from a consortium of academics in 2008 found that a popular pacemaker-defibrillator product could also be remotely reprogrammed to deliver deadly shocks.
Comments (9)
by Chrispium
@Cosmowrench
Aye I know it’s a fiction movie, however what I noticed right of the bat, looking at their Facebook page, was that the last status update was in october or thereabouts. It was that which made me make the assumption that it might be vaporware.
I can’t be absolutely sure ofcourse and I don’t want to do extensive research on it :)
by Editor
Who is “their”? I’m posting an update on this story tonight.
by cosmowrench
@Chrispium Its a trailer of a fiction movie! I just posted it because the movie adresses the issue of safety when it comes to implants. This insuline pump is in fact an implant. As i understand it, the control device communicates with the actual pump over a wireless connection. I can see this is in benefit of the users comfort, but it also means the connection can be hacked wich could lead to the death of the user.
by Chrispium
@Chrispium
Comment was in regards to the link provided by Cosmowrench.
by cosmowrench
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19o-sh9KWAk
by Chrispium
Looks like vaporware to me.
by John Doe
Yeah, this stuff really doesn’t need to be wireless, just like our power grid doesn’t need to be online. Like cosmowrench says, you leave anything unsecure and people will mess with it just for the hell of it. God knows what a large scale, organised attack could do.
by Editor
It’s not wireless. It’s just not hardened (easy to detect and decode signals and easy to send overwrite signals to the device from a remote transmitter).
by cosmowrench
Same with all future wireless implants: not safe. The more these will become mainstream, the greater the threath. If you see how easy a newspaper corp. can hack into mobile phones, that are supposed to be protected against hacking attacks, you get the picture. I’ve read an article about research to a device that would shield any wireless accessible implant…harder to hack doesnt do it when it comes to health. They clearly underestimate human ingenuity.