Scientist With Implanted RFID Chip Gets Computer Virus

A You Tube video, "Scientist implanted with RFID Chip gets computer virus," demonstrates vulnerability of RFID chips implanted under the skin and already utilized for monitoring potentially fatal conditions.

"A British scientist has become the first human to be infected with a computer virus. Dr Mark Gasson, a cybernetics expert at the University of Reading, has had a computer chip implanted in his hand. The chip is pro- grammed to open security doors to his lab - and ensure only he is able to switch on and use his mobile phone. But Dr Gasson deliberately infected the chip with a computer virus, which was then automatically transmitted to affect to the lab security system. 'Once the system is infected, anybody accessing the building with their passcard would be infected too,' he told Sky News...Dr Gasson says his experiment also exposes the vulnerability of chips now routinely implanted in patients. "

"Heart pacemakers contain mini-computers that control the heartbeat, and communicate with doctors via a special reader held against the skin. But if a virus was transmitted to the device which stopped it working properly, the consequences for the patient could be fatal. 'The devices will have to start to use security encryption,' said Dr Gasson. 'Medical devices should have some kind of password protection as well. They're basic security precautions. It's surprising these devices don't have them already.'"

This video is two years old, hopefully, software encryption has or will shortly become standard. It's food for thought!

RFID Chips Can Catch Computer Virus

A BBC News Technology video reports RFID "...implanted identity chips can pick up computer viruses." An experiment conducted by Reading University's Mark Gasson demonstrated RFID virus susceptibility, and suggests, chip should be viewed as a simple computer able to do some tasks. Gasson portrays vulnerability as a risk of technology, there's good and bad! Is it time to for some benefit-to-cost risk assessment? The present viewer finds remark suggesting implantable tech such as pacemaker chip or deep brain stimulator can be infected and likening human figure to a "...walking computer infected with a virus" - just plain curious! The last comment is equally disquieting, "...there's no danger, right now, of somebody say with a pacemaker getting a computer virus."

'Leap Second Bug' Causes Glitches for Major Websites, Airlines

from datacenterknowledge.com: Computer problems with the Amadeus airline reservation system caused long lines and traveler delays at airports across Australia this weekend, as the outage wreaked havoc with the check-in systems used by Qantas and Virgin Australia. The outage appears to be related to the "Leap Second Bug” in which the addition of a single second to the world’s atomic clocks caused problems with IT systems.

More than 400 Qantas flights around Australia were delayed by at least two hours as staff switched to manual check-ins. The outage at Amadeus, one of the world’s major reservation systems, lasted about an hour but had a longer impact on air travelers and airline staff.


Media reports say Qantas has blamed the leap second bug for the issues at Amadeus. A leap second is a one-second adjustment that is occasionally applied to Universal Time (UTC) to account for variations in the earth’s rotation speed. The Qantas problems were the most visible business impact of the problems the adjustment created or IT systems.

The leap second bug is a time-handling problem that is a distant relative of the Y2K date issue. The leap second bug bug caused problems for a number of popular web sites, including LinkedIn, Reddit, Mozilla and The Pirate Bay.

Amadeus says it handles more than 3 million airline bookings a day through its huge data center in Erding, Germany, where more than 5,000 servers process 1 billion transactions a day across its many travel businesses (see video overview and infographic for more). In a media statement, Amadeus said it is investigating the cause of the systems crash and will “take any appropriate steps to avoid this reoccurring.” The outage was the second this year for Amadeus’ reservations systems, following an incident in January.

Computer Viruses Could Cross Frontier Into Biological Realm, Researchers Say

from pcworld.com: Computer hackers could create malicious software that crosses the line from technology to biology, crafting viruses that could spread dangerous epidemics, researchers said at Black Hat Europe. "We are really on the border between the living and the not living," said Guillaume Lovet, senior manager of Fortinet's Threat Research and Response Center, during a keynote speech discussing the similarities between biological and computer viruses. Fortinet was the main sponsor of the Black Hat Europe security conference in Amsterdam last week.

The comparison between computer and human viruses was made to give security researchers a better understanding of why the human immune system is so much better in battling viruses than antivirus systems. "We came to wonder if there can be some kind of convergence between human viruses and computer viruses," Lovet added. "It may sound like a scenario for a bad Hollywood movie, but it is not such a stupid question."

One of the main things that led Fortinet researchers to that conclusion is the similarity between computer and human viruses. In essence they behave the same way, including information coding for parasitic behavior inside a host system. Reasoning along this line of thought, a Denial of Service (DoS) attack can be compared to HIV (Human immunodeficiency virus), because both aim at overloading a system, said Ruchna Nigam, security researcher at Fortinet.

cyberwars: duqu virus strikes iran

Golemreza Jalali, head of Iran's civil defense, concedes Iran is "...in the initial phase of fighting the Duqu virus," according to a Sydney Morning Herald article (SMH). "Symantec, the computer security firm, which has led investigations into Stuxnet and Duqu, said the new virus seemed to be intended to gain remote access to computer systems." The SMH article adds, "'...authors had access to the Stuxnet source code,' Symantec said. 'The attackers are looking for information such as design documents that could help mount an attack on an industrial control facility. Duqu is essentially the precursor to a Stuxnet-like attack.'" Is it a softening up preparatory phase - a prelude to war? The megalomaniac Israeli leaders want to attack even as a majority in Israel are against it!

virus infects creech afb systems piloting attack drones overseas

An attack drone killed Anwar Al-Awlaki, an American citizen, late last month. Now, computer systems at Creech AFB, NV, which run drone missions overseas, are infected with a virus, reports Danger Room article, "Exclusive: Computer Virus Hits U.S. Drone Fleet". "'We keep wiping it off, and it keeps coming back,' says a source familiar with the network infection, one of three that told Danger Room about the virus. 'We think it’s benign. But we just don’t know.'” The security status of the drone operation is summarized, "...specialists don’t know exactly how far the virus has spread. But they’re sure that the infection has hit both classified and unclassified machines at Creech. That raises the possibility, at least, that secret data may have been captured by the keylogger, and then transmitted over the public internet to someone outside the military chain of command." What's next? A false flag op with commandeered drones, remote piloted by Islamic terrorists?

updates: air force insists drone cockpit virus just a 'nuisance'*
in the wake of wikileaks, white house orders new computer security rules*