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Boffins find 'scary radio attack'* against pacemakers

*Attack is actually 'very difficult in real world'

It's a little difficult to credit as a discovery the fact that analogue receivers – whether they be on a bluetooth device or a pacemaker – are vulnerable to radio interference.

That, however, is what's going to be presented at an IEEE conference later this week. Here's an excerpt of a story from America's Institution of Engineering and Technology's E&T Magazine:

“The researchers tested cardiac defibrillators and pacemakers in open air to determine which radio waveforms could cause interference.

“Then they exposed the medical devices to those waveforms in a both a saline bath and a patient simulator.”

The video below gives this explanation at about 1:07:

“The researchers found that they could use radio interference to send false heartbeat signals to the devices in controlled lab conditions. Theoretically, a false signal could inhibit needed pacing, or cause unnecessary defibrillation shocks.

“Experiments show that this would be very difficult to do in real world conditions, however.” (Emphasis added).

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This would be unexceptional, except that pretty much every outlet to cover the story runs with a long boilerplate generalising the “hacker threat” we all live under before finally admitting that right now, an exploit would be a bit of a challenge.

Since the pacemaker exists inside the body, it inherits a degree of shielding which means, as the researchers note, that the attacker would have to bring a malicious device within a few centimetres of the body.

Which is, of course, why phone makers like Apple have recommended for years that people with pacemakers exercise sensible caution. This Apple document, now six years old, is a handy example.

The researchers suggest "solutions to help the sensors ensure that the signals they're receiving are authentic. Software could 'ping' the cardiac tissue to determine whether the previous pulse came from the heart or from interference. If the source was not the heart, the software could raise a red flag."

This, at least is sensible, even without drawing a picture of an evil hacker on the wall. Since interference is well-known, if a pacemaker or defibrillator can filter out false alarms with a kind of feedback loop, that's a good thing.

The researchers also suggest shielding consumer devices against RFI because some signals can have odd effects – such as turning on microphones or sending false signals through the analogue interfaces. ®

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