Technology, and its advancement, is a great thing. With every passing moment, some new development is announced that will make our lives, and ourselves, better, or faster, or more efficient, or healthier, or more accessible, or a host of other things that make everything we do better.

The problem is, there are always people out there who want to exploit that technology for their own gain, their own end, or their own purpose. And now, although it’s been a concern for quite some time, it has now been predicted that the first ‘Online Murder’ will happen by the end of the year.

What they are really saying is that new technology developed to make us better can be hacked remotely and instead used to kill us. For example, it is now possible to control pacemakers via the internet or WiFi, which would allow a physician to make adjustments or the device itself to send reports electronically to said physician. Unfortunately, it also means that someone could theoretically hack into that device remotely and shut it off completely, or trigger it to discharge a lethal electric shock directly to the heart, in either case killing the person who has it.

How a pacemaker works

(Incidentally, when you hear about ‘wireless pacemakers,’ it usually means the pacemaker has no wires connecting directly to the heart tissue, not that it’s actually wireless or you can use it to send emails. Something to keep in mind.)

So much is this a concern not just for pacemakers but for any implanted medical device, that just last year the FDA had to offer guidelines for the security of these types of devices. The problem is, the guidelines they offered are exactly the same, or perhaps I should say no different, than the security guidelines for anything else. Secure passwords, encryption, only allowing authorized users access…that’s the exact same guidance you’d get when being told how to secure your router!

I still think it would require some real technical know-how to pull this off and I’d be surprised if it happened as soon as has been predicted, but as these devices become more prevalent it will just be one more way that criminals will be able to exploit the technology that’s supposed to make our lives better.