How Ethical Hackers Find Weaknesses in Medical Devices with Parker Daudt

What makes medical device penetration testing different from traditional cybersecurity?

Christian Espinosa is joined by Blue Goat Cyber penetration tester Parker Daudt to explore what ethical hacking looks like when the device being tested can directly affect patient safety.

Parker explains how penetration testing pushes beyond vulnerability scanning to uncover the real impact of an exploit, why outdated threat models can leave important attack surfaces untested, and why even something as simple as a CD drive can become a meaningful entry point.

They also discuss hospital environments, exploitability, the risks created by large-scale device deployment and why medical device security has to be considered through the lens of the patient, not just the technology.

In This Episode:

• 01:30 Moving from traditional cybersecurity to patient safety

• 05:57 Working with manufacturers on real-world risk

• 09:25 Vulnerability scanning versus penetration testing

• 11:55 Unexpected medical device attack surfaces

• 14:26 Why penetration testing depends on the threat model

• 17:38 Why hospitals should be treated as hostile environments

• 20:08 Exploitability versus probability

• 22:45 Why medical device cyber risk has real-world consequences

• 24:50 How one compromised device can create a foothold

• 26:16 Is hacking really like the movies?

• 29:21 Parker’s biggest takeaway for manufacturers

Connect with Parker Daudt: