io9
A study released today shows that heart monitors installed in over 100,000 patients are vulnerable to a remote software hack that could allow attackers to suck your social security number right out of your body. Apparently these devices send your medical data to a computer where your doctor can monitor your health, but the data isn't encrypted and contains a lot more than your heart rate. According to AP, "Someone intercepting the transmissions could retrieve such data as the patient's birth date, medical ID number and, in some cases, Social Security number." Nice. There's even a remote possibility that a similar hack would allow somebody to stop your heart, if they bump into your chest with an antenna. Heart plugs from Dune, here we come. [AP via Futurismic]
Your Heart Monitor Has Been Hacked
11:43 AM on Thu Mar 13 2008
By Annalee Newitz
286 views
6 comments
Comments
Heh, I saw this article yesterday and thought, "That's so io9." Very cyberpunk. There's a great sci-fi/assassination/mystery novel in this.
I'm in UR heart, stealin UR social.
NY Times man...
Besides one shouldn't turn on the DS wifi near people with Pacemakers.
@Annalee Newitz: Good thing it's not a pacemaker: I'm in UR pacemaker, jackin up UR heart.
It's taken them until the END of Shadow President Cheney's tenure to figure this out?!
What kind of idiot designs a heart monitor that broadcasts the patient's SSN? Geeze.
-Kle.
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