More bad news from
Medtronic Inc.: they have hired security software experts to investigate new claims that
their insulin pump device can be potentially hacked into. This can potentially
lead to diabetes patients being dosed with lethal amounts of insulin,
and thankfully there have not been any reports of hackers remotely controlling
the device. Medtronic admitted the security defect in August, but declined
to say which of their eight models has the problem, despite the fact that
about 200,000 people use their insulin pumps. Officials from the $16 billion
dollar a year company stated that it will be hard to make any changes
to their device because FDA regulations require device makers to get approval
before alterations.
