US medical devices vulnerable to hacking

A US agency has warned that medical devices and hospital networks in America are potentially vulnerable to cyber attacks, urging device manufacturers and medical services to make sure there are proper safeguards in place to prevent such attacks.

According to AP, on Thursday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) disclosed susceptibility in a wide array of life-sustaining devices such as implantable defibrillators, pacemakers as well as wearable insulin pumps.
It stated that hackers might one day penetrate and introduce malware into the medical equipments, and thereby gain access to configure settings in medical devices or hospital networks and either shut them down or manipulate the machinery.
William Maisel, the deputy director for science at the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health said “Over the past year, we’ve become increasingly aware of cyber security vulnerabilities in incidents that have been reported to us.”
He added, “Hundreds of medical devices have been affected in the past, involving dozens of manufacturers.”
Maisel noted that many of the medical devices were infected by malware.
He stressed that no instance of a cyber attack on an implantable device has been documented.