Dissecting The Reasons Behind Medical Device Hacking
An inside look at the world of medical devices…
By: Christian Espinosa Forbes Councils Member Forbes Technology Council, Bestselling Author of The Smartest Person in the Room, Ironman, metal fan.
Very few industries loom as large in the collective cybersecurity consciousness as the medical device industry does — and with good reason. But the reasons why hackers choose this industry are not always as clear-cut as they seem.
One of the most sinister scenes in the long-running U.S. spy drama “Homeland” was one that saw Vice President Walden of the United States murdered remotely via a security vulnerability in his pacemaker. While this storyline is clearly one that belongs on a high-octane TV drama, the reality is that this narrative is grounded in fact. Dick Cheney, George W. Bush’s real-life vice president from 2001 to 2009, was sufficiently scared of a similar event. He felt the threat so real that the wireless capabilities in his own pacemaker were disabled in order to prevent this method of assassination from becoming reality.