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Keeping Pacemakers Safe From Hackers

Posted by samzenpus on from the blackest-of-black-hats dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and the French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control have now developed a scheme for protecting implantable medical devices against wireless attacks. The approach relies on using ultrasound waves to determine the exact distance between a medical device and the wireless reader attempting to communicate with it." I had no idea that things have gotten so bad that hearts are being hacked.

1 of 167 comments (clear)

  1. Just ask my dad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    My dad got a defibrillator fitted a year back. It has bluetooth and 5mb of memory. I didn't want to connect to it since killing a parent at Christmas would probably sour the mood.

    3 months ago he got it updated and was ill for 4 weeks until a new patch came(although I suspect he milked it a bit for attention). Apparently an overflow in the software was causing small discharges! We don't need to protect against hackers, protecting against the programmers would be a good start. At least I can go around and say that my doctor flashed my dad. :D ..AC because I don't want my family medical history on the net.