tomhubbardgreen.co.uk Ads, social media, games, design & technology

All your brains are belong to us: brain hacking is the new frontier

Image: ShellyS (Flickr)

It sounds like the stuff of science fiction but a new piece of research published in Neurosurgical Focus reveals the emergence of a new frontier of technological security: protecting against hackers that can take control of your brain.

In recent years it has become increasingly common for people to be fitted with electronic brain implants which can be used to regulate bodily functions like brain cooling and even prosthetic limbs. These implants were designed to adhere to existing clinical guidelines but, currently, no assessment is made of their security risks.

When examining a cardiac defibrillator that was released in 2003 the researchers found that it could be manipulated via a wireless connection to induce a potentially fatal heart rhythm using cheap, basic equipment. Although the chips are designed to be controlled by wireless technology there are currently no systems in place for user authentication, making gaining access to the device a fairly simple process.

The research warns that 'neurosecurity' must develop at the same pace as neural technology in order to protect future patients from crashes and malicious attacks which may, if current security issues are allowed to perpetuate, even result in hackers being able to remotely control a brain's memory function.

The researchers state that most of these scenarios are hypothetical and that there is presently a low risk of tampering for electronic brain implants but they also call for immediate action in order to anticipate and address the moral and technological problems that will undoubtedly arise from our increasing reliance on wireless neural technology.

Related posts