Insulin pump hack delivers fatal dosage over the air

In a hack fitting of a James Bond movie, a security researcher has devised an attack that hijacks nearby insulin pumps so he can surreptitiously deliver fatal doses to diabetic patients who rely on them.

The attack on wireless insulin pumps, made by medical devices giant Medtronic, was demonstrated Tuesday at the Hacker Halted conference in Miami. It was delivered by McAfee's Barnaby Jack, the same researcher who last year showed how take control of two widely used models of automatic teller machines so he could to cause them to spit out a steady stream of dollar bills.... Insulin pump delivers...

Yeah, "insecure by design" sounds about right.


What was that guy trying to tell me about the quality of medical device software on here just the other day?

Any medical device that uses wireless technology (and especially unencrypted wireless technology) is just a piece of [censored] in my opinion! Why wireless? Oh, I know:- wow, gee-whizz!

But don't worry ... the hackers will be taking over the world soon. Let's be honest, they'll probably make a better fist of things than the present so-called Leadership.

Meanwhile, anyone interested in stuff like this could do worse than Google "Barnaby Jack" (he of ATM hacking fame).