photo by Wammes Waggel  

Dr Mark Gasson of the University of Reading in the UK says that he is the first human being to be infected by a computer virus. Fortunately for the rest of us, the infection was voluntary and is not catching (at least for humans). Dr. Gasson had an RFID tag, like those used in access control systems or to identify pets, implanted into his hand. Prior to the insertion, the chip was contaminated with a computer virus that targets the access control systems that read the chip. While harmless to its willing host, the virus was able to successfully infect the readers that Dr. Gasson tested. Had other chips been read by the system, they would have also been infected by the virus which would then have been passed on to other reader that scan the newly infected chip. While this was only a proof of concept, it is easy to see the threat posed by this sort of attack in a world where RFID chips are being used in credit cards, passports, our pets and even our own bodies.

Imagine, if you will, the havoc that could be cause by a single criminal using an infected credit card to inject a virus into a cash register that sends him all the credit cards put through the machine and infects any RFID cards used at it with the same virus so it could be spread to other terminals. The losses from an attack of this nature could be staggering. Scarier still is the fact that the criminal need not infect the first terminal himself. Using readily available, inexpensive technology, an attacker could build a device to infect any RFID chip that came within range. A simple stroll through a busy airport could easily start a world wide crime spree. If implanted chips that carry medical or other personal information become common place, as many predict they will, mass identity theft could become as easy as a trip to the mall if solutions are not found to the major threat uncovered by Dr. Gasson.

First human ‘infected with computer virus’ [via UFO Evolution]