Thursday, August 31, 2017

FDA recalls pacemaker due to security bug

A year ago it was disclosed that pacemakers made by St. Jude had a glaring security vulnerability that allowed someone to remotely reconfigure the device.  Death or injury could result.

Now there's a recall:
In what may be a first, patients with heart conditions that are using particular pacemaker brands will have to visit their doctors for firmware updates to keep their embedded devices safe from tampering.
Likely the entire profit generated by that product line has evaporated.

4 comments:

  1. matismAugust 31, 2017 at 11:16 AM

    So what they're saying is that if you have a pacemaker and if your heart starts to go pitter-patter when you're near a social justice warrior, you've probably been hacked?
    }:-]

    ReplyDelete
  2. ShermAugust 31, 2017 at 3:26 PM

    This is going to drive a lot of doctor visits. My wife got a pacemaker this year so I can remember the brand. (NOT St Jude) A year or two from now I/she might not remember prompting sleepless nights and worried telephone calls. Now multiply that my many thousands.

    ReplyDelete
  3. LindaGSeptember 1, 2017 at 12:00 AM

    If you have anywhere to keep medical notes. Make a note of that pacemaker right now. Then you won't have sleepless nights over that.
    My hubby had one put in a year and a half ago. His is not St. Jude, either. He has a card to carry in his wallet and I have the temporary card in my wallet. So I need to make a few more copies to keep elsewhere. Fishing and hunting often lead to wet wallets...

    ReplyDelete
  4. JayNolaSeptember 4, 2017 at 12:32 AM

    I strongly recommend one of these.
    It's got my make, model, model #, and an emergency contact number on it. It's recognizable as a medical bracelet but not too much.

    https://www.amazon.com/dp/B014EYHO3I

    ReplyDelete

Remember your manners when you post. Anonymous comments are not allowed because of the plague of spam comments.