A defibrillator fitted to US vice president Dick Cheney had its wireless functions removed in the factory, in order to ensure hackers – or terrorists – could not kill him by attacking the device.
Defibrillators and their close cousins the pacemaker have been fingered as a security risk before. Last year we reported that radio interference could set them off under some circumstances. Back in 2008 similar concerns were raised by The Medical Device Security Centre.
It now appears that US security authorities were aware of the potential problem in 2007, the year then-Veep Dick Cheney was fitted with a new defibrillator by Dr. Jonathan Reiner.
SOURCE: theregister.co.uk/
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