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In what is being touted as a world first, a British Scientist says he has been infected with a computer virus.

The scientist, Mark Gasson, claims to have been infected with the virus after he contaminated an electronic chip which was inserted into his hand.

Gasson, of the University of Reading, said the device was programmed with a virus which could transfer itself to other electronic systems it came in contact with, the BBC News website reported on Wednesday.

Any other chips that interacted with the infected systems would also contract the virus, he said, raising the possibility that in the future, advanced medical devices such as pacemakers could become vulnerable to cyber attacks.

Gasson’s computer chip, a refined version of the ID chips used to track animals, has been programmed to open security doors for him and to unlock his mobile phone automatically.

The chip in Gasson’s hand is high-end radio frequency identification chip, a sophisticated version of the technology used n shop security tags and for identifying pets. The device, the size of the grain of rice, allowed him secure access to University buildings and his mobile phone.

Once infected with the virus, the microchip contaminated the system that was used to communicate with it. It would also have infected any other devices it was connected to.

Gasson deliberately introduced a computer virus into an electronic chip that had been implanted into his left hand last year, in order to study its effects.

The results allegedly prove the principle that in future, human implants like this could contaminate increasingly complex medical devices such as pacemakers and cochlear implants.

“With the benefits of this type of technology come risks. We may improve ourselves in some way but much like the improvements with other technologies, mobile phones for example, they become vulnerable to risks, such as security problems and computer viruses,” Gasson was quoted by BBC News as saying.

Implanted technology has become increasingly common in the United States, where medical alert bracelets can be scanned to bring up a patient’s medical history.

Professor Rafael Capurro, of the Steinbeis-Transfer-Institute of Information Ethics in Germany, added: “If someone can get online access to your implant it could be serious.

“From an ethical point of view, the surveillance of implants can be both positive and negative. Surveillance can be part of medical care, but if someone wants to do harm to you, it could be a problem.”

Gasson, however, said technology with surveillance capabilities could in future become widely used for non-medical purposes. “If we can find a way of enhancing someone’s memory or their IQ then there’s real possibility that people will choose to have this kind of invasive procedure,” he said in the BBC interview.

Ever since Google disclosed in January 2010 that internet traders had stolen information from its computers the exact nature and extent of the theft has been a closely guarded company secret. But a person with direct knowledge of the investigation now says that the losses included one of  Googles crown jewels, a password system that controls access by million of users worldwide to almost all of the companies web services, including email and business applications.

The program, code named Gaia, was attacked in a lightning raid taking less than two days last December, the person said. Described publicly only once at a conference four years at, the software is intended to enable users and employees to sign in with their password just once to operate a range of services.

The intruders do not appear to have stolen passwords of Gmail users, and the firm quickly started making significant changes to the security of its networks. But the theft leaves open the possibility, however faint, that the intruders may find weaknesses that Google might not even be aware of, independent computer experts said. The new details seem likely to increase debate about security and privacy of cast computing systems like Google’s that now centralize the personal information of millions of individuals and business. As vast amounts of digital information are stored in a cluster of computers, referred to as “cloud” computing a single breach can lead to disastrous losses.

The attacks have been traced to computers at two campuses in China, but investigators acknowledge that the true origin may have been concealed, a quintessential problem of cyber attacks.

While the scope of the latest data theft perpetrated by China- based hackers is alarming, the fact that it has occurred again is not particularly surpricing.From the exposure of Ghostnet in March-2009-a cyber operation that was found to have infiltrated important networks in 103 countries including India- to the hacking of Google servers that blew up into the China-Google fracas, cyber attacks traced to Chinese soil have become increasingly frequent over the past few years. What is more surprising is that despite having been burned last year, inadequate precautions seem to have been taken by the Indian government to guard against repeat occurrences. The scale of the data mining this time, as reported by a Canadian watchdog organization, is extensive. Highly classified information stolen from the defense ministry pertains to defense matters and Naxalism, among other issues. Computers in various Indian embassies around the world have also been compromised.

If cyber security is not moved up on the government’s list of properties, the next attack is likely to be worse. That cyber warfare will increasingly be part of a state’s suite of offensive and defensive mechanisms is indisputable. India’s booming IT industry and rapidly growing network infrastructure is both an advantage and vulnerability in this context.

Our legislative and security measures are struggling to keep pace. The Information Technology Act of 2000 is a catch-all legislation severely lacking in many respects.

Government agencies lag in cyber forensic capabilities. Similarly, our bureaucrats and diplomats seem to inadequately train in best practices, such as never transferring sensitive data from a secure net work to a personal or otherwise unsecured computer. Taken together, these paint a depressing picture of our ability; to defend against further cyber raids.

It is time to take our cue from other countries that have taken the initiative in this are. Not just defense and security but Indian commercial interests are at stake. The US, for example, has a robust approach to cyber security, setting up specialized cells in its intelligence agencies coupled with research. One way to beef up India’s cyber security infrastructure is to bring in the private sector in a big way, with adequate confidentiality clauses. Given the high profile and undoubted expertise of our IT sector to disregard such a resource would be wasteful in the extreme. And that, as we have just seen, is something we cannot afford.