Industry News

Jay Radcliffe, a 33-year-old Meridian, Idaho, man, recently announced it is possible for hackers to control insulin pumps and blood sugar monitors used by diabetics like himself, The Associated Press reports.

In a presentation at this week's Black Hat computer security conference in Las Vegas, Radcliffe described experiments he performed using the insulin pump he wears, according to the news source. Radcliffe discovered his pump can be reprogrammed to take orders from a remote control other than his own, via a simple process involving a USB drive and a laptop computer.

A similar process can be used, Radcliffe said, to tamper with the readouts from his blood sugar monitor. By intercepting the signals sent to a computer by a sensor on his body, Radcliffe falsified the information his monitor displayed. Radcliffe said that while an attacker would have to be close to a victim to take control of an insulin pump, signal interception could be accomplished from a distance of half a mile, The AP reports.

Radcliffe told The AP his discoveries both excite and worry him, and he plans to notify the manufacturers of his medical devices after his Black Hat presentation.

Many presenters at this year's Black Hat conference have focused on ways hackers could use computers to cause physical damage. One researcher demonstrated how cyber criminals could take over prison computers to open cell doors, and another warned that utilities companies are using insecure computers to control electricity generation and water distribution.