Two new healthcare security concerns

March 13, 2008

These two threat vectors just popped up on the radar this week:

1. Radio-signal based attacks on implantable devices such as pacemakers were found to be possible by IEEE researchers.  The worry is that someone could maliciously change settings on pacemakers or read the patient data that maybe stored in such devices. Read the research paper from the IEEE.

2. Medical identity theft. The idea here is that people are stealing identities to get medical coverage or that real medical insurance/coverage information is being used to rack up bogus claims.  This has apparently affected 3 percent of identity crime vicitims. It maybe relatively small, but the worry is that it's growing, and that the records of you could intermingle with those of the false patient claiming to be you. See the article from SELF magazine on medical identity theft.

-Geoff