The world's largest medical device company has acknowledged that many of its implanted cardiac defibrillators use an unencrypted wireless protocol that could allow an attacker to change the settings of the lifesaving devices.
, or FDA, advised doctors and patients to continue using the devices while a fix is developed. That's because the defibrillators' therapeutic value far outweighs the potential risk, they said, adding that no one is known to have successfully exploited the flaw.
Homeland Security said security researchers in Europe who uncovered the vulnerability found that Conexus transmits data both without encryption and without authentication, meaning it can't ensure that illegitimate systems are blocked from taking control of the defibrillators. Moreover, the agency said, the devices would have to be"in states where the RF functionality is active" — that is, an attacker would have to be working at a time the system is actually fired up to transmit.
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