Pacemaker firmware update needed on almost half a million pacemakers.
On Aug. 23ed, 2017 the FDA has issued a recall on 465,000 pace makers for fear of being hacked. All the pacemakers in the recall are made by Abbott (formerly St. Jude Medical) the devices are listed below1:
- Accent
- Anthem
- Accent MRI
- Accent ST
- Assurity
- Allure
The fix to this is simply go to your physician or cardiologist to get a firmware update to the device via radio-frequency. The update will take about 3 minutes and will operate in backup mode during the update. The new firmware is currently available for pacemakers already in place and is pre-loaded on devices manufactured after August 28, 2017.
The vulnerability that this firmware update fixes is access to the device by unauthorized users to access a patients device using equipment that is commercially available. This could be used to modify the programming of the implanted pacemaker and that could result in repaid battery deletion or setting the wrong pacing on a pacemaker causing harm to the patient. At the time of this writing there is no know reports of patient harm related to the security vulnerabilities.
Source:
- https://www.fda.gov/MedicalDevices/Safety/AlertsandNotices/ucm573669.htm