Hacking Human Hearts Edit
Wireless Access to Defibrillators & Pacemakers

This is all kinds of wrong. A team of computer security researchers were able to gain wireless access to a combination heart defibrillator and pacemaker.

“They were able to reprogram it to shut down and to deliver jolts of electricity that would potentially be fatal — if the device had been in a person,” according to Barnaby J. Feder at the NY Times. “In this case, the researcher were hacking into a device in a laboratory. The researchers said they had also been able to glean personal patient data by eavesdropping on signals from the tiny wireless radio that Medtronic, the device’s maker, had embedded in the implant as a way to let doctors monitor and adjust it without surgery.”

That’s all we need. As bad as it all sounds, the report (which will be published at www.secure-medicine.org) says those with heart devices needn’t live in fear.