Originally posted May 27, 2010

Man contracts computer virus, needs to be defragged

May 27, 2010

Mark Gasson became the first person ever to be infected with a computer virus. In fact he infected himself. “That’s silly!” you might say. And you’d mostly be right. You might also be asking yourself, “How in the world can a person be infected with a computer virus? Is this like the Avian Flu? Am I going to have to wait in a long line for another immunization?” The answer, luckily, is “No.” Turns out that an implanted computer chip was on the receiving end of this viral infection.

Gasson, a scientist at the University of Reading in England, first placed a radio-frequency identification tag (RFID) into his hand in 2009. His tag allowed him entry into his University of Reading building as well as access to his cell phone. The virus was able to corrupt his RFID tag and disable its communication.

Mark Gasson, University of Reading

While you may be concerned that Gasson is just some nutters scientist, you needn’t be worried. His research focuses on the interface between biological and computer systems. So it’s only natural that he performed an experiment on himself! The stated point of the infection was to show that as implants (pacemakers, monitoring devices) become more advanced in their capability to report back to medical doctors, they also open themselves up to potential attack. While this may seem like a strange publicity stunt, it is a very effective proof of principle display that we need to be cautious of how we design next-generation medical implants.