Reports of people seeking urgent help at hospitals for bad psychedelic trips started trickling in earlier this week, first at central Fremont hospitals, but quickly spreading across the Bay area and, by midweek, reports came in from all over the States. Initial speculation about a bad shipment of synthetic drugs was soon overruled when a surprising common denominator emerged: Brain Chip implants.

Unknown hackers had managed to infiltrate the brain implant networks of Neuralink, BrainGate, and Synchron and had inserted three different types of malware. The least harmful created electronic hallucinations similar to bad acid trips; the next set locked patients out of their communication platforms and internet; but the worst one installed a ransomware agent that looped childhood memories, effectively shutting down the target’s ability to communicate.

The hack’s sophistication points towards a large hacker community or a nation state’s cyber warfare unit, but so far, no organization has claimed responsibility. The motivation for the attacks is also unclear, as no ransom demands have been received. Perhaps it was a ‘test case’ to see what was possible.

An anonymous source from within Synchron estimates it will take several months to restore full functionality for their affected clients. They further revealed that Synchron had co-opted software engineer implant clients – unaffected by the current hack – into their cyber security unit, in essence creating a counter hacking team tracking down the perpetrators. Without the need for cumbersome and time-consuming keyboard entries, the speed with which these cyborg operators navigate the net and hack into systems is mindboggling.

With cybercrimes and cyber warfare on the rise, MedTech and BioTech companies just got a nasty wakeup call: Nothing is sacred, everyone is a target.

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Exponential tech advances will enable people to overcome disabilities as well as augment their natural abilities by linking their brains to computer networks. This will provide opportunities for new business models as well as risks, and opportunities for criminals and bad actors to exploit. Futureworld constantly strives to unearth challenges and solutions that might arise in the future, and help our clients build game-changing businesses to capitalize on that future. For more ideas around this topic, feel free to contact Adam Parsons or Doug Vining.