Q. Can someone's pacemaker be actually hacked? Can it be hacked to kill that person?
Doctor Answer is medically reviewed by SecondMedic medical review team.
Yes, it is technically possible for a pacemaker to be hacked. Cybersecurity experts have demonstrated how pacemakers can be turned off or even manipulated to deliver fatal jolts of electricity.
In 2018, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued warnings about potential vulnerabilities in certain cardiac implantable electronic devices manufactured by Abbott Laboratories such as their pacemakers and implanted cardioverter defibrillators. It was found that these products were vulnerable to cybersecurity attacks which could allow an unauthorized user to access the device's settings remotely via radio frequency communication. Such an attack could also potentially lead to a denial-of-service condition where the device would not function while connected wirelessly or otherwise, completely disabling its use.
Researchers from the Security and Privacy Research Lab at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette did a study in 2018 on hacking medical implants including pacemakers and showed that these devices are vulnerable even when using encryption technologies such as Advanced Encryption Standard (AES)-128 with no secure key management scheme detected on them. In this study, they hacked into over ten different types of medical implants present in hospitals all over North America showing that hackers can easily get access without having physical contact with patients’ bodies or equipment/implants used in hospitals operating rooms. They also demonstrated how attackers can take control of sensitive patient therapies settings like cardioversion and defibrillation shocks by triggering electric pulses so strong through modified custom-built transmitters that they can actually cause death!
The FDA has now mandated all healthcare providers who use these particular models to transition patients away from them due to security concerns but other models may still remain exposed if proper security protocols are not implemented correctly during testing phase before commercial release - something we should be aware of when purchasing any kind of medical implant technology from hereonout!
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