TRENDS
How Secure is Your Device? Connected devices and equipment can be an entranceway for hackers By Mark Thill
The revelation was like something
out of a spy novel. In October 2013, former Vice President Dick Cheney and his cardiologist, Dr. Jonathan Reiner, told “60 Minutes” that when Cheney got a heart defibrillator in 2007, Reiner ordered the manufacturer to disable the wireless feature, to prevent would-be hackers from interfering with the device and shocking Cheney into cardiac arrest. Since then, ransomware attacks on healthcare providers have become common, and medical devices are now being scrutinized not only because of the possibility of hackers interfering with them to hurt or kill people, but because devices can be used to “open the floodgates” for hackers to gain access to electronic medical records, personal patient information, even providers’ financial systems. 36
October 2021
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