The benefits and risks of personal medical monitoring on the internet

Key Facts

In recent years, diabetes patient became so adept at remote monitoring that a DIY community of patient-hackers manipulated devices to better manage their medical needs, and the medical device industry has learned from them.
Another risk is to the medical device itself, as evidenced by the headlines around the risk of hackers getting into a medical device like Medtronic's pump and changing dosage settings, with potentially fatal effects.
Some medical imaging systems, which can have a lifecycle of over 20 years, are still running on Windows 98 without any security patches and there have been incidents where the MRI scanners or X-ray machines have been hacked to run crypto mining operations, unbeknownst to health-care providers.
HOW TO MAINTAIN CONTROL AS A CONSUMER As doctors are increasingly prescribing glucose monitors and insulin pumps for not just type 1 diabetes but the much more common type 2 diabetes as well, consumers weighing whether or not to use such a device can start by looking on the manufacturer's website for statements about cybersecurity and HIPAA compliance for protection of their private health-care information.