Wireless implantable medical devices are at risk of infiltration from hackers, say William Maisel of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Tadayoshi Kohno of the University of Washington in Seattle. The New England Journal of Medicine published these expert opinions in a perspective piece in its April 1 edition.

Although no device hacking incidents have been reported, the authors note that current technology has several weaknesses that hackers potentially could exploit. Medical devices could be easy targets for hackers because they are in constant communication with patients, physicians, and manufacturers. Hackers could manipulate the technology to:

• Extract data.
• Reprogram the devices.
• Flood the devices with information to block incoming communication.
• Drain a device's batteries.

To increase the security of medical devices, the authors encourage FDA to perform risk-based security assessments that are specific to a device's function and perceived security threat. Maisel and Kohno also recommend that software engineers include security features during the design phase.