Medical device maker St. Jude Medical on Monday began deploying software designed to protect its remote monitoring system for implantable pacemaker and defibrillator devices. The move came on the heels of the U.S. food and Drug Administration’s warning that the company’s Merlin@home Transmitter contained vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers. Merlin@home wirelessly communicates with implanted cardiac devices. It gathers data and sends it to a physician over the Merlin.net Patient Care Network.
This is very worrisome to me because my Wife had a sudden cardiac arrest a few months ago and required a defibrillator/pacemaker implanted in her. We have a St Jude's monitoring device and recently received a new data USB stick to connect to cellular connection. I wonder if this also is part of the improvement in security? It's great to have the peace of mind of a remote monitoring device, but it does demonstrate the potential for others to do damage that could be fatal. It's also scary to think we have one of these devices and end up reading about this security risk in the news rather than St Jude informing us through email or other contact.
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St. Jude Medical Patches Cardiac Machine’s Cybersecurity Flaw
Posted by: John P. Mello Jr. January 11, 2017 09:51 AMMedical device maker St. Jude Medical on Monday began deploying software designed to protect its remote monitoring system for implantable pacemaker and defibrillator devices. The move came on the heels of the U.S. food and Drug Administration’s warning that the company’s Merlin@home Transmitter contained vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers. Merlin@home wirelessly communicates with implanted cardiac devices. It gathers data and sends it to a physician over the Merlin.net Patient Care Network.