There's an interesting post on the Wind River Blog Network today about the need to make connected medical devices more secure.

Santhosh Nair writes that as medical devices have become smarter and more interconnected, threats to their security have also increased. He cites examples of vulnerabilities in everything from implantables to drug delivery devices. Nair also asserts that the hackers targetting medical devices aren't a group of mischevious teens horsing around on the internet; they're well-funded pros backed by terrorist cells, the mob, and even government agencies.

It's essential for device designers to take these security issues seriously, he says. Moreover, those who do will gain a competitive advantage. A good resource for those looking to learn more is the Medical Device Innovation, Safety, and Security Forum, a nonprofit organization whose missions is to protect "public health and well-being by advancing computer risk management practices to ensure wide availability of innovative and safe medical devices and electronic health record systems," according to its web site.

We've talked about efforts to improve medical device security before, and this is one topic that definitely isn't going away anytime soon.

—Jamie Hartford