- A vulnerability found last thursday could cause that the users receive less altered dose of this hormone.
- Medtonic warns that at least 4000 persons are using old devices.
The medic devices company Medtronic is warning thousands of users that use the insule pumps from before 2013 that these devices could contain an important vulnerability of cybersecurity, allowing a cyberattacker to modify the settings of the medication delivery and provoke the patient to enter in an emergency situation due the diabetes. Doing their part, rhe National Security Department from USA posted las thursday a pàck of recommendations to reduce the problem.
“In this moment, we have not received confirmation reports from people without permission that had modified the settings from the devices or controlled the insulin delivery”, informed from Medtronic in a letter sent to their clients last 27th June. As well, the company calculates that at least 4000 persons from USA and an unknown number in an international levelstill use the old devices.
Being due to a found vulnerability, these persons could receive too much or a little amopunt of insulin if a cyberattacker decides to hijack the communication systems and send those commands. In both cases, the result could be dangerous to the eprson, because a sudden dose of a big amount of insulin can cause a convulsion or a diabetic coma.
Medtronic advices the patients that, if it is possible, they should speak with their doctor to obtains a prenscription for a new device. For those that cannot change or dont want to, the company recommends to keep the pump and the related devices under physical control, keep the serial numbers of the private pumps, disconnect the devices of the remote transmission system CareLink while nto being used for transmitting information, stay sharp to the pump alarms and to cancel any not intentional insulin dose.