Heart defibrillator implants can be hacked - experts

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Implanted heart defibrillators, which automatically shock a fluttering heart back into a normal rhythm, can be hacked from the outside, U.S. researchers reported on Wednesday.

There is no immediate danger to patients, the team of computer experts, electrical engineers and cardiologists said.

But they made one Medtronic Inc device give up patient information off its computer chip, got it to fire improperly, and ran its battery down, all using inexpensive equipment.

They offered a way to fix these weaknesses and said they were publishing their findings not to frighten patients but to inform the industry and regulators.

"I think patients with implantable defibrillators should not be worried by this," Dr. William Maisel of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School said in a telephone interview.

"I think we would be doing them a disservice if this upsets them. There has never been a documented malicious attack on someone's implantable cardiac defibrillator."

Maisel said his team had contacted the U.S. Food and Drug Administration because it could be an industry-wide problem.

Medtronic's Rob Clark said the company's devices had carried such telemetry for 30 years with no reported problems.