A new standard in Bluetooth technology, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), is greatly improving connectivity in the healthcare space. Though the increasing connectivity of medical devices has also opened up more opportunities for bad agents to engage in cyberattacks.
For connected medical devices, cyberattacks are a massive threat to patient safety. For example, an attack against a BLE radio interface can interfere with the essential performance of a IoMT device — which could harm or potentially kill a patient. Multiple vulnerabilities like these have already been discovered in Bluetooth-enabled medical devices, leading to widely publicized disclosures, mandatory mitigations, and device recalls. One of the most impactful examples is the SweynTooth vulnerabilities which impacted a number of BLE IoMT devices. The impact was so severe that the FDA published a safety communication to medical device manufacturers, warning of the dangers imposed if one of the vulnerabilities were triggered — which could crash, deadlock, and freeze devices, or even enable an attacker to bypass its security safeguards.
Read the full article at CPO Magazine.
