Poor Cybersecurity in Health Devices a Life-threatening Problem

The issue sounds a bit sensational—hackers can breach your insulin pump and kill you—but Radcliffe gave a pretty clear explanation of how it works.

Joshua Philipp, --August 19, 2011

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Security researcher and Type 1 diabetic Jerome Radcliffe demonstrated a potentially lethal vulnerability in wireless medial devices by hacking his own insulin pump and glucose meter—showing a live audience that a malicious hacker could potentially use security gaps in the devices to end someone’s life.
Radcliffe’s segment at the 2011 Black Hat Technical Security Conference in Las Vegas had a resonating effect, raising concerns of a frightening side of cybersecurity. For some security researchers, however, this came as no surprise. Rather, it brought attention to an issue they’ve warned of for years. One such organization is the Medical Device Innovation, Safety and Security Consortium, which was founded to help protect the growing number of medical devices linked to computer networks from the likes of malware and hackers out to cause harm. More...

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