MASSDEVICE ON CALL — The medical device industry is far from prepared to defend its technology from potential cybersecurity threats, but some device makers may be starting to look at the issue.
Long-time medtech cybersecurity researcher Kevin Fu says that he’s "starting to see some glimmers of hope" that the industry is developing security standards.
"We’re starting to hear, more often, companies talking about security during the concept phase," Fu said in an interview with IEEE Spectrum. " That is, before a single line of code is written, before a single piece of the design has been set, security has already made its way into the process because it is now something important, along with the safety and effectiveness."
MassDevice.com first spoke with Fu a couple of years ago when medical devices hacking gained national attention thanks to a couple of cybersecurity researchers who hacked insulin pumps.
Fu has also been thinking about ways to protect medical devices with external technologies, through development of wearable signal jamming technology that would prevent a malicious hacker from accessing a wireless-enabled device.
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