WASHINGTON — The Food and Drug Administration warned that certain insulin pumps made by Medtronic PLC have cybersecurity vulnerabilities and could be manipulated by hackers, causing danger to diabetes patients.
Medtronic MDT, +0.27% began notifying patients about the issue Thursday, saying a hacker could potentially connect wirelessly to a nearby insulin pump to change settings or control insulin delivery. But the company said the likelihood of such a danger from hackers is small, and that the unauthorized person would need to be in fairly close proximity to the person with the insulin pump.
Dublin-based Medtronic said it doesn’t know of any confirmed cases where the cybersecurity vulnerability has been exploited. But it is a serious issue and could lead to hypoglycemia if additional insulin is delivered to the patient, or to diabetic ketoacidosis if not enough is delivered.
The devices at issue are the Medtronic MiniMed 508 insulin pump and the MiniMed Paradigm series insulin pumps.
An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.
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