Congress has asked the Government Accountability Office to see what the Federal Communications Commission is doing about the risk of hackers remotely hijacking medical devices, following a Las Vegas presentation on how easy it is to take control of an insulin pump.

In a letter to the GAO sent Aug. 15, Reps. Anna G. Eshoo (D-Calif.) and Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) tasked the group with checking up on the FCC to make sure it was taking steps to ensure the proliferating number of wireless medical devices wouldn't interfere with each other and were "safe, reliable and secure."

A statement on Markey's website said the request was prompted in part by a demonstration at the DefCon hacker conference in Las Vegas earlier this month. At the conference, software developer Jerome Radcliffe, who was diagnosed with diabetes about a decade ago, showed how easy it was to remotely access his insulin pump and mess with the dosage levels.
In related hacking news, this summer MIT scientists unveiled a jamming technique that could protect devices -- like pacemakers -- from unwanted intrusions.

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