A clock-like device will protect pacemakers and fitness trackers from hacker attacks.

The use of fitness trackers, smart pacemakers, robotic prostheses and insulin pumps,

which became possible thanks to the activedevelopment of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth technologies poses a new question for cybersecurity specialists. In some cases, a hacker attack on such devices can lead to the death of the user - the harm from it will be immeasurably higher than from a regular data leak.

The danger lies in the Bluetooth technology itself -devices with it transmit a signal up to 10 m. This means that anyone in the immediate vicinity of users of the wearable device can hack it. So far, no one has done this, but the researchers decided to prevent such attacks in the future.

A device developed by scientists transforms the bodypeople in a separate closed network. The engineers used the electro-quasistatic connection of the human body (EQS-HBC) and the conductive properties of the body to transmit a low-frequency radio signal without a carrier along the interface between the skin and the environment. As a result, they received a signal that is never transmitted further than a centimeter from the body.

Previously, engineers from the University of Texas createdA piezoelectric generator capable of converting energy from a contraction of the heart muscle into electricity and powering a pacemaker. In the future, the development will allow creating a completely autonomous device for influencing the heart rhythm.