Originally published on October 22, 2013
Former US vice-president, Dick Cheney said he had his heart implant modified in fear of a terrorist attack.
It was reported that Cheney's doctor has disabled the wireless function of the heart defibrillator in 2007, preventing assassins from interfering with it and causing a fatal heart attack.
An implantable cardioverter-defibrillator is a small battery-powered electrical impulse generator implanted in patients.
The device can detect cardiac arrhythmia and correct it by delivering a jolt of electricity. It also has a wireless function that allows it to be reprogrammed by a hospital doctor.
According to reports, the device's wireless function makes it vulnerable to a range of electronic signals.
Experiments done in the past show that it is possible to use radio interference to send false heartbeat signals to the devices, which could cause unnecessary defibrillation shocks. However, researchers also warned that hacking the device would be very difficult to do in real world conditions as the hacker needs to in close distance with the patient and requires sophisticated equipments.
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