The Office of Food and Drug Administration (USA) announced the recall of some models of pacemakers produced by Abbott, formerly known as St. Jude Medical.

The reason for the recall was the vulnerabilities discovered in the devices that allow attackers to gain control over pacemakers and, as a result, to harm the patient. In particular, being at a relatively short distance from the victim, the hacker can reduce the battery power of the device or speed up the heartbeat.

Vulnerabilities are affected by the following models of pacemakers:.

Accent Anthem Accent MRI Accent ST Assurance Allure Currently, vulnerable devices are 465 thousand. human. The patients can not solve the problem independently. They need to consult a doctor and update the firmware of a pacemaker. The upgrade process will take about 3 minutes, and at this time the device will work in the backup mode. The vital functions to continue to work, and after completing the update process, all settings of the pacemaker will be restored.