In the next five years, the use of wearable wireless devices will increase, according to a new report from ABI Research. ABI believes applications covering heart rate monitors, blood glucose meters and tracking and monitoring services will drive the adoption of a new generation of body-worn sensors, especially when the services are connected to smartphones.

Ultra-low power wireless technologies such as single mode Bluetooth 4.0, existing proprietary, and the planned 802.15.6 specifications combined with mobile handsets and social networking application capabilities will allow this growth. The professional healthcare market is starting to look at the potential for embedded wireless communication in wearable devices for in-hospital and remote patient care.

However, just as other wireless networks are vulnerable to hackers, will these devices be unsafe? Concerned about the security –- or lack thereof — guarding certain wireless-enabled medical devices, researcher Jerome Radcliffe attempted to hack into the insulin pump he wears on his body to control his Type 1 diabetes. He succeeded.

Radcliffe talked about the hack in a presentation at the Black Hat Security Conference, held in Las Vegas last month.

Radcliffe, a computer security expert, described how he was able to remotely interfere with his own insulin pump and glucose meter. He detailed how untraceable attacks could be launched against wireless insulin pumps, pacemakers and implanted defibrillators from a distance of half a mile:

First, he had to hack the wireless sensors that collect blood sugar information and transmit it to the insulin pump. To figure out what kind of chips are used in the sensors, he consulted FCC filings – public documents – which contained valuable information on how the devices operated. He also found good information in the data sheets for the chips and the patent information for the insulin pump.

Then, he had to decipher the wireless transmissions. These transmissions are not encrypted, because the devices have to be really cheap. To review the signal, Radcliffe captured the signal with a $10 radio frequency circuit board, then used an oscilloscope to analyze the bits.

When he couldn’t understand what the signals said, he tried to jam them to see if he could stop the transmitter. Within a quarter of a mile, he figured out he could indeed mess up the transmitter via a denial of service attack, or flooding it with false data.

Radcliffe spent two years trying to hack his own pump because he was concerned about the possibility that someone might be able to hack into similar pumps and reconfigure their settings. He eventually managed to take control of the pump so that he could change the amount of insulin it injected into his body without leaving a trace of what he’d done.

Radcliffe isn’t the first to hack a vital piece of medical equipment. Three years ago, a group of academics published a paper about a similar vulnerability in wireless pacemakers.

So should you worry if you use one? Well, it’s possible to hack any wireless medical device that’s not configured properly, according to Tim Gee of Medical Connectivity.

However, doing so is not a simple task, and the chances of a hacker taking over someone’s implanted medical device to commit harm or even murder are small.

“I’m sure this won’t come as a complete surprise to the industry, but it’s a largely hypothetical situation that largely belongs in the pages of a thriller,” said David Harley, senior research fellow at ESET.