In what is being touted as a world
first, a British scientist says he has been infected with a computer
virus.
The scientist, Mark Gasson, claims to have been infected with
the virus after he contaminated an electronic chip which was inserted into his
hand.
Gasson, of the University of Reading, said the device was
programmed with a virus which could transfer itself to other electronic systems
it came in contact with, the BBC News website reported on
Wednesday.
Any other chips that interacted with the infected systems
would also contract the virus, he said, raising the possibility that in the
future, advanced medical devices such as pacemakers could become vulnerable to
cyber attacks.
Gasson's computer chip, a refined version of the ID
chips used to track animals, has been programmed to open security doors for him
and to unlock his mobile phone automatically.
The chip in Gasson's
hand is a high-end radio frequency identification chip, a sophisticated version
of the technology used in shop security tags and for identifying pets. The
device, the size of the grain of rice, allowed him secure access to University
buildings and his mobile phone.
Once infected with the virus, the
microchip contaminated the system that was used to communicate with it. It would
also have infected any other devices it was connected to.
Gasson
deliberately introduced a computer virus into an electronic chip that had been
implanted into his left hand last year, in order to study its
effects.
The results allegedly prove the principle that in future,
human implants like this could contaminate increasingly complex medical devices
such as pacemakers and cochlear implants.
"With the benefits of this
type of technology come risks. We may improve ourselves in some way but much
like the improvements with other technologies, mobile phones for example, they
become vulnerable to risks, such as security problems and computer viruses,"
Gasson was quoted by BBC News as saying.
Implanted technology has
become increasingly common in the United States, where medical alert bracelets
can be scanned to bring up a patient's medical history.
Professor
Rafael Capurro, of the Steinbeis-Transfer-Institute of Information Ethics in
Germany, added: "If someone can get online access to your implant, it could be
serious.
"From an ethical point of view, the surveillance of implants
can be both positive and negative. Surveillance can be part of medical care, but
if someone wants to do harm to you, it could be a problem."
Gasson,
however, said technology with surveillance capabilities could in future become
widely used for non-medical purposes. "If we can find a way of enhancing
someone's memory or their IQ then there's a real possibility that people will
choose to have this kind of invasive procedure," he said in the BBC interview.
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