Medtronic disables pacemaker programmer updates over hack concern

FILE PHOTO: Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher and graduate student Haitham Al-Hassanieh holds one of the Medtronic heart defibrillators he successfully hacked, at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts October 10, 2014. REUTERS/Brian Snyder/File Photo

NEW YORK: Medical device maker Medtronic Plc has disabled Internet updates for some 34,000 CareLink programming devices that healthcare providers around the world use to access implanted pacemakers, saying the system was vulnerable to cyberattacks.

The company, in a letter sent to physicians this week, said it knows of no cases where the vulnerability was exploited by hackers. The letter was labelled “urgent medical device correction”.