Hacking Your Brain: Monitoring and Controlling Neural Signals

Cyberthieves might be mining personal information from your brainwaves at this very moment.

And although this may sound like a plot from a science fiction film, it is a growing concern among researchers who have demanded officials implement a privacy and security framework to block hackers from reading our neural signals.

Experts at the University of Washington have revealed how hackerscould inserting images into dodgy apps and recording our brain’s unintentional reaction using brain-computer interfaces.

Brain-computer Interfaces (BCIs) are widely used in the medical field and other industries, including marketing, gaming and entertainment.

Although this technology was initially created to improve and enhance the quality of human lives, in the wrong hands it will wreak havoc on them.

Researchers at the University of Washington say that time is running out and officials need to employ a privacy and security framework to stop those who would use our own brains against us, reports Motherboard.

‘There’s actually very little time,’ electrical engineer Howard Chizeck told Victoria Turk with Motherboard over Skype.

‘If we don’t address this quickly, it’ll be too late.’

Chizeck and fellow engineer Tamara Bonaci are conducting hacking research that includes the use of BCIs, combined with subliminal messages inserted into video games to gather users’ private information.

For example, when playing a video game users may see logos of familiar brands pop-up on the screen that just vanish.

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