Posted on behalf of guest contributor Christoph Schmitt

Wireless communication systems have made it easier for people with implanted medical devices to track vital information or to exchange data with other medical equipment. But these same technologies also make people with glucose monitors, drug pumps, pacemakers or other devices more prone to security breaches.

Speaking at a computer security conference last week, security researcher and type 1 diabetic Jerome Radcliffe described how he ‘hacked’ his own implanted insulin pump and success-fully took control over some of its function.

Radcliffe managed to intercept wireless signals between his implanted glucose sensor and a linked up insulin pump. By broadcasting a stronger signal, he altered the blood sugar concentration that was displayed on the pump, which a wearer would normally use to adjust the insulin dose that is administered by the device. Radcliffe speculates that such a wireless attack might be carried out from up to half a mile away.

“My initial reaction was that this was really cool from a technical perspective,” Radcliffe told AP. “The second reaction was one of maybe sheer terror, to know that there’s no security around the devices which are a very active part of keeping me alive.”

Radcliffe’s hack follows from a 2008 report from a group of computer scientists who showed how to deliver a potentially lethal shock to an implantable cardiac defibrillator using just an antenna, radio hardware and a personal computer.

To improve security, earlier this year Dale Nordenberg, formerly the chief information officer for the National Centers for Infectious Disease at the Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention, founded the Medical Device Innovation, Safety and Security Consortium, which aims to improve the security features of devices and electronic health records. Speaking at the Conference on Safeguarding Health Information in May, Nordenberg said: “Medical devices are operating on networks to a degree that no one planned.”