In perhaps the weirdest computer developments of the year so far, a team of US scientists have managed to hack into a pacemaker. They not only hacked in but managed to mess around in ways that you really wouldn’t want them messing if it was your heart the device was stuck in (read the research paper pdf).
Technically the device they hacked wasn’t just a pacemaker, but an ‘implantable cardioverter defibrillator’, which not only sets a beat but can shock a heart back to the right rhythm. In the US over 100,000 people have such devices (AP).
“Using our own equipment (an antenna, radio hardware, and a PC), we found that someone could also turn off or modify therapy settings stored on the ICD,” write the researchers in a series of FAQs.
“Such a person could render the ICD incapable of responding to dangerous cardiac events. A malicious person could also make the ICD deliver a shock that could induce ventricular fibrillation, a potentially lethal arrhythmia.”
The researchers however insist there is nothing to worry about, they are merely highlighting a loophole that needs to be looked at.
“I think patients with implantable defibrillators should not be worried by this. I think we would be doing them a disservice if this upsets them,” William Maisel of the Harvard Medical School told Reuters.
Device manufacturers also highlighted the safety of their products. One, Boston Scientific, told AP its defibrillators “incorporate encryption and security technologies designed to mitigate these risks,” including measures to prevent unauthorized reprogramming.
The device the team hacked – which is designed to communicate with equipment outside the body so doctors can monitor its function – was not actually inside someone. To simulate a patient they stuck the ‘implantable cardioverter defibrillator’ into a slab of meat. The NY Times points out that the team put in a lot of work and needed over $30,000 worth of lab kit.
If I had one of these things inside me I’d want it a lot more secure than they seem to be at the moment, however low the risk.
Image: Heart surgery / NIH