Robert Siciliano, an identity-theft expert with McAfee, explains where people are vulnerable to hacking. Medical implants, baby monitors, cars with OnStar, and garage openers can all be compromised. He even speculates about future hacking of implanted devices in the brain.
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Thank you. Hacking scandals are the stuff of movies, government, and celebrity scandal, but don't be fooled. As we put more of our lives and our faith in the internet and technology, we're increasingly at risk for having our personal information pilfered. Robert Siciliano is an identity theft expert with McAfee who says there are some surprising places where you're vulnerable and you likely won't even know it. Good morning.
Good morning to you.
Some of these places, these 5 places, really surprised me. Things that I had never even heard of before. The first one is medical implants. How is it possible that thieves are able to engage in identity theft with medical implants?
Well, not so much identity theft, but anything that has a wireless connection is hackable. Whether hacked to it or from it, wireless devices inherently are controlled by something externally, and they can be hacked or manipulated.
Okay, so in the movie of the week, I would have some sort of organ implanted on me that had like a little chip in it and my arch nemesis would turn off that organ and I would die.
Yes, so in that situation you wanna wrap yourself in tin foil.
Okay, no, but seriously, is that what the concern is with a medical implant, that somebody could mess around with your internal system?
Medical implants such as heart monitors, pacemakers, the, you know, hackers, good hackers like security professionals, have reverse-engineered these processes. They've looked at how they could be manipulated, and if, say, a bad guy was to get a hold of certain tools that, say, a doctor might have access to, then yes, in fact, alterations can be made in that device wirelessly that could could cause fatal injury.
Is that— how possible is that, though?
Well, it's possible. It certainly is possible. Security professionals have brought attention to it over the past year or two. At the recent Black Hat conference and others, they've brought focus on it. And when that occurs, the manufacturers of these different technologies, they take this process that the good guy, the the penetration tester, the good guy hacker, had used, and they do what they— what is necessary to patch whatever flaw might have been detected.
A couple more of these, and I want to get through them. This next one happened to me. Baby monitors. I've been on the phone before, like on a cordless phone, and then I've heard the conversation of my neighbors through what I believe is a baby monitor.
Yeah.
Is that what you're talking about, just being able to listen in on people's conversations?
So the baby monitors, there are older ones that you can listen in on the call or the conversation, and also the video monitors, you can see what's going on. Now, a lot of the new video monitors out today, they have, um, you know, frequency adjustments, they have some type of protection involved that prevents that, but some of the older monitors are still vulnerable. You want to check the package to make sure that others can't see in or listen in on your baby.
How can that— more and more we're driving less of vehicles and more of computers. How can automobiles be hacked into?
Well, the OnStar system allows for remote unlocking of the vehicle and for remote starting of the vehicle, and hackers have, you know, reverse engineered that process and found a way to get in to unlock the door with a text message, even to start the vehicle.
I'm glad you said unlock the door because you can also do that with a garage door opener if you have one with the same frequency. As your neighbor. But the last one I really want to get to, you say even your mind can be hacked. What do you mean by that?
Well, you know, again, hackers, medical professionals, the certain mind tricks. Again, this isn't something that, you know, the general public should be concerned about. Down the road, maybe 10, 15 years from now, there may be that technology, something available. Again, you know, just put your tin hat on and don't worry about it.
I always do that when I'm around Jean the Magnificent. Robert, thanks so much for joining us this morning.
Thank you.
Some places that I hadn't even thought of before, and now we will. Thanks.
