Infected medical devices spreads chaos?

IoT has changed the game for healthcare providers making it easier to track and analyze sensitive medical data for their patients, thereby improving the delivery of patient care and reducing cost. With these promising advancements, there is a surge in demand for such devices making this emerging market worth around $140 billion by the end of 2021. With such high demands, IoT manufacturers rush to introduce new products to the market to hold their share of these profits. But with so much confidential data transmitting to and from physicians, IoT medical devices must use safe communication protocols that encrypt their data.

Unfortunately, these devices are not always the most secure. They often have major security vulnerability that puts the patient or their data at too much risk, making it harder for the patient and the healthcare workers to rely on these devices to provide accurate data or care.

The lack of essential security awareness among the practicing healthcare staff, coupled with the non-existence of state-of-the-art cybersecurity solutions, has led to the healthcare industry become a favorite target for hackers as medical databases contain tons of information, including insurance records and financial data, which are ripe for fraud, theft, and sale on the black market. Furthermore, medical IoT networks further increase the risk of compromise by increasing the attack surface by multiplying the number of possible access points. In addition, these networks include devices that are vulnerable to attack due to a lack of knowledge of what makes them easy targets and adequate security to combat these vulnerabilities. Thus, risk factors also increase exponentially as compromised IoT devices’ consequences can lead to a patient’s life-or-death crisis.

To better understand the security vulnerabilities that IoT medical devices face, we must know which products are the most vulnerable in the industry.

• Wireless Infusion Pumps
  As the name may suggest, Wireless infusion pumps remove the need for doctors to give their patients vital medical fluids in person. Instead, these IoT devices can talk with patients’ electronic health records to speed up fluid infusions and cut healthcare costs.
  However, these pumps’ wireless connection protocols can provide an easy target for cybercriminals to compromise. Wireless infusion pumps need to be hooked up to a network to take in data from a server and send it back out to receiving devices, making them vulnerable to malicious software that finds its way onto the web.
• Implanted Devices
  Like the ones that track your body’s cardiovascular functions, Implanted devices wirelessly transfer patient data to expedite the healthcare they receive. However, a faster data transfer rate doesn’t mean much if it compromises a patient’s confidentiality and puts their health at risk. Hackers who remotely access implanted medical devices can wreak havoc on their functionality and subsequently endanger patients’ lives.
  The FDA confirmed that St. Jude Medical’s implantable cardiac devices have vulnerabilities that could allow hackers to access a device. The vulnerability occurred in the transmitter that reads the device’s data and remotely shares it with physicians. The FDA said hackers could control a device by accessing its transmitter. Once in, attackers could deplete the battery or administer incorrect pacing or shocks.

Though, it is not mandatory for medical device manufacturers to include cybersecurity capabilities as part of their offerings. But with the rapid use of IoT and the unlimited data being transacted, it is the need of the hour to secure healthcare against cybersecurity attacks. In partnership with technology enterprises, hospitals must ensure that the much-needed security is up-to-date, protecting the patients, doctors, and healthcare system.

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