Former US vice president Dick Cheney recently admitted during an interview segment with 60 Minutes to having doctors disable his heart implant's wireless functionality so terrorist could not operate via remote control and potentially cause harm.
Cheney said the procedure to remove the wireless function on a defibrillator implant took place in 2007. Five years later he found the potential scenery become a plot point for an episode of Homeland.
"I found it credible," Cheney said. "I know from the experience we had, and the necessity for adjusting my own device, that it was an accurate portrayal of what was possible."
Most devices including pacemakers, defibrillators and insulin pumps have wireless mode for doctors to regulate one of these devices during a medical emergency. Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillators (ICD) like the one Cheney uses, monitors heartbeat and will send low-energy electrical pulses to prompt the heart to beat at a normal rate if it detects an irregular rhythm. There have been warnings for ICD users by the American Heart Association against too much close-range exposure to electronics from mobile phones to powerful CB radios.
These devices can be vulnerable to a range of electronic signals, according to an interview BBC conducted with Adrian Culley, global consultant for security company Damballa.
"Research has been undertaken which shows it is entirely feasible to potentially exploit someone's ICD, given close proximity to the individual," Culley explained.
According to Culley, chances of a successful attack on Cheney are "slim."
Researchers from the University of Washington, the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Harvard Medical School claims to have carried out software radio-based attacks on ICD that could cause harm to patients.
Cheney co-wrote a book chronicling his heart problems with Cardiologist Jonathan Reiner entitled Heart: An American Medical Odyssey. Reiner told 60 Minutes that Cheney's blood rose to levels that could have caused abnormal heart rhythms and cardiac arrest during the September 11 attacks by Al-Qaeda. Having suffered his first heart attack at 37, the former vice president has suffered five heart attacks and was close enough to death in 2010 to tell his family where he wanted to spread his ashes.
