Could implanted medical devices be hacked?

“Many implantable devices, probably virtually all of them, have some sort of security vulnerability or potential vulnerability, or haven't been designed with security in mind,” says Bill Aerts, executive director of the University of Michigan’s Archimedes Center for Medical Device Security. “The thing that makes them potentially vulnerable is that they have to communicate with systems outside the body.”

A growing number of electronic devices are being implanted into patients, and these are increasingly likely to include some form of wireless connectivity. The devices communicate not only with hospital systems, so clinicians can update them remotely and gather data on patients’ conditions, but also with consumer electronics such as smartphones, so patients can monitor their progress.

These connected devices could bring security hazards that put patients at risk, in theory at least. So far, despite several alerts warning of vulnerabilities in medical devices, there have been no real world attacks and no patients are known to have come to harm.