Mark Gasson had caught a bad bug. Though he was not in pain, he was keenly aware of the infection raging in his left hand, knowing he could put others at risk by simply coming too close. But his virus wasn't a risk for humans. Gasson, a cybernetics scientist at the University of Reading, was walking around with an implanted microchip he had intentionally infected with a computer virus. If he got too close to a computer, he could in principle infect that machine.
Although this possibility may sound like a foray into science fiction, information security experts believe the blurring of the boundaries between computer and biological viruses is not so far-fetched—and could have very real consequences.
As TechWorld reports, Axelle Apvrille and Guillaume Lovet of the network security company Fortinet presented a paper comparing human and computer virology and exploring some of the potential dangers at last week's Black Hat Europe conference - SCIENTIFIC AMERICA
No comments:
Post a Comment