http://www.darkreading.com/security/vulnerabilities/231300312/getting-root-on-the-human-body.html By Ericka Chickowski Contributing Editor Dark Reading Aug 05, 2011 BLACK HAT USA 2011 -- Las Vegas -- A security researcher at Black Hat yesterday demonstrated how a hacker could remotely turn off a diabetic person's insulin pump without his knowledge. The findings came after months of research delving into the security of the portable medical devices that monitor diabetics' blood-sugar levels and those that deliver the body-chemistry-balancing insulin necessary to keep those levels in check throughout the day. A SCADA security expert by day, Jerome Radcliffe himself is a diabetic and had been curious about the security of the devices that keep him alive. He looked into both continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) and insulin pumps within his research, with the findings from his pump-tinkering offering the most dramatic hackability. According to Radcliffe, it is possible for a hacker to not only illicitly turn off the pump remotely, with the device only offering a small chirp as a response, but also to remotely manipulate any setting on the pump without it notifying the user at all. "It's basically like having root on the device, and that's like having root on the chemistry of the human body," he said. [...] ___________________________________________________________ Tegatai Managed Colocation: Four Provider Blended Tier-1 Bandwidth, Fortinet Universal Threat Management, Natural Disaster Avoidance, Always-On Power Delivery Network, Cisco Switches, SAS 70 Type II Datacenter. Find peace of mind, Defend your Critical Infrastructure. http://www.tegataiphoenix.com/Received on Wed Aug 10 2011 - 05:35:28 PDT
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