July 16, 2008

Pacemakers can be hacked

For something that is so crucial for a patient with a weak heart, the pacemaker for the all that it does happens to have a security flaw, which could prove to be deadly for patient.

These devices are implanted into the body and help keep the heart beating at a steady rate, but it is a little known fact that these devices could also be hacked into and the worse thing about this is that nobody is telling the patients about this problem.

Computer experts from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and the University of Washington, have been working with Dr William Maisel who is heart specialist from Harvard to show the makers of the equipment how they can be hacked into and then remotely give the heart a shock or fail to work in the event of an emergency.

Source [Chicago Tribune]