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How Hardware Issues Can Also Pose Security Issues

Article: Greenberg, Joshua C, Mahmoud R Altawil, and Gurjit Singh. “Letter to the Editor—Lifesaving Therapy Inhibition by Phones Containing Magnets.” Hearth Rhythm Journal, January 7, 2021. https://www.heartrhythmjournal.com/article/S1547-5271(20)31227-3/fulltext

On February 25, 2021, Apple released a service bulletin stating that there was a risk of the Mag Safe adapter on the iPhone 12 interfering with the magnetic fields of implanted pacemakers and defibrillators.(1)  

The bulletin came after medical professionals at various medical organizations tested whether the Magsafe Adapter on the phone interfered with pacemakers and defibrillators.  Much to the concern of the medical professionals, it did.   Greenberg, Altawil, and Singh described the test thusly:

The first author (JG) raised concerns regarding possible device–device interaction due to the presence of a strong magnetic array in the iPhone and MagSafe compatible cases. We thus tested this interaction on a patient with a Medtronic Inc. (Minneapolis, MN) ICD. The study was approved by the institutional review board. Once the iPhone was brought close to the ICD over the left chest area, immediate suspension of ICD therapies was noted and persisted for the duration of the test (Figure 1). This result was reproduced multiple times with different positions of the phone over the pocket.

Pacemakers have a known vulnerability to hackers and this incident demonstrates that they have issues with manipulation by hardware as well.  This type of issue might even be harder to protect from than a software hack because iPhones are ubiquitous and people use them by holding them near their heads - which are near their hearts.  

(1) “About the Magnets inside IPhone 12, IPhone 12 Mini, IPhone 12 Pro, IPhone 12 Pro Max, and MagSafe Accessories.” Apple Support. Apple Computer, February 25, 2021. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211900

(2) Curley, Bob. “Hackers Can Access Pacemakers, but Don’t Panic Just Yet.” Healthline.com, April 4, 2019. https://www.healthline.com/health-news/are-pacemakers-defibrillators-vulnerable-to-hackers. 

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