While medical devices that work with computing systems save countless lives, just how secure and private is the information they provide? An interdisciplinary team of medical researchers and computer scientists from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School and the University of Massachusetts Amherst warn that federal regulators must improve how they track security and privacy problems in medical devices.
The researchers analyzed reports from decades of FDA databases and found that current mechanisms to evaluate device safety may not be suitable for security and privacy problems. Overall, they suggest a more effective reporting system for medical device cybersecurity should be established to catch security problems that otherwise could rapidly spread.
