Archived update on cybersecurity incident

We recognize the challenges incidents like this can create for customers, patients and suppliers and we appreciate your patience, trust and continued partnership as we work through this situation.  

This page will continue to serve as Boston Scientific's source for updates and information for customers and other stakeholders. 

About the incident 

A cybersecurity incident continues to affect certain information technology systems, and we remain in a network outage with disruption to our operations. Once detected, we activated incident response protocols and have continued our investigation to assess the threat with the assistance of cybersecurity and other third-party experts.  

The incident is affecting access to certain operating systems and business applications, including the ability to manufacture products, as well as process and ship customer orders. 

The investigation into the cybersecurity incident is ongoing. While we are working diligently to restore affected functions and systems access, the timeline for a full restoration is not yet known. 

Product updates  

We recognize the importance of cybersecurity for patients, customers and vendor systems. Patients and physicians are at the center of our recovery effort. We are working to maintain continuity of supply. Further, Boston Scientific continues to investigate potential impact to patients’ implanted devices or to devices that connect to networks across our product portfolio and will provide updates as soon as they are available. 

Our investigation to date demonstrates no impact to implantable cardiac rhythm management (CRM) device function. It also doesn’t impact the device’s ability to transmit data, or healthcare professionals’ ability to access remote patient management data for CRM devices remotely monitored prior to the network disruption. Additionally, there is no evidence of increased cybersecurity risks or difficulties transferring data from CRM remote monitoring systems to electronic medical records (EMR) systems. 

However, new remote monitoring activations are impacted by this disruption: 

• For new cardiac device implants -- CRM devices other than insertable cardiac monitors (ICM): New remote monitoring communicators cannot be activated, thus available device data will NOT be transmitted to remote patient management systems until the communicator can be activated. Programmer interrogations are not affected by this system disruption.
• ​For new ICM device implants: Newly implanted ICMs must be activated using the Boston Scientific Clinic Assistant app to enable the ICM to properly record episodes. New ICMs are unable to pair to the patient remote monitoring mobile phone, therefore available episode data recorded by the ICM will NOT be transmitted to the remote monitoring system until the ICM can be paired to the patient mobile app. Episodes will continue to be recorded by the ICM and can be transmitted to the remote monitoring system via an in-person interrogation with the Clinic Assistant app by selecting the “Interrogate” button. 

Once systems are restored and pairing with home monitoring equipment occurs, the device will transmit recorded data to the remote monitoring system. Timeline for full restoration is not yet known. Updates will be provided when these functions are restored. 

Ordering and shipping -- customers can continue to place orders 

While we are currently unable to process or ship customer orders, we are able to intake orders electronically (through EDI) and place them in a queue for future fulfillment. 

Communicating with your Boston Scientific sales representative 

Customers may continue communicating and exchanging information with Boston Scientific through their normal channels, including with sales representatives and other employees, in email and established digital platforms and connections.  

Please continue to outreach to your sales representative during this time to address questions.  

Next steps for restoration and recovery 

We are directing resources toward the systems that have the greatest impact on customers and product delivery and have engaged external experts to assist in the restoration and recovery efforts. Progress is being made in recovering our core business system and we will provide further updates as functionality is restored.