Microsoft HoloLens for the military: Hacker attacks on VR headset may cause physical pain

Microsoft’s HoloLens virtual reality headset to be redesigned to better resist hacker attacks.

The HoloLens virtual reality headset, which Microsoft manufactures for the US military, has met with widespread rejection by soldiers because it can cause various physical ailments. There are now also fears that hacker attacks on the VR/MR headset could jeopardize mission security and the health of soldiers.

Nicole Dominikowski (translated by Jacob Fisher), Published 10/20/2023 🇩🇪

Microsoft has been manufacturing mixed reality and virtual reality HoloLens headsets for the military since 2021. Now the Research and Development Agency of the U.S. Department of Defense fears that soldiers wearing VR devices could be incapacitated by “cognitive attacks” from hackers.

The devices are intended to enable soldiers to see through smoke and around corners, use holographic images for training and project 3D terrain maps into the field of vision at the touch of a button. The military HoloLens’ mixed reality technology has advanced features such as thermal imaging, sensors, GPS technology and night vision capabilities.

Due to new security concerns, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has announced an initiative to develop tactical mixed reality systems to protect against cognitive attacks:

Such attacks can include information flooding to increase equipment latency and induce physical illness, planting real-world objects to overwhelm displays, subverting a personal area network to sow confusion, injecting virtual data to distract personnel, using objects to overwhelm a user with confusing false alarms, assessing user status through an eye tracker, and other potential attacks.

Soldiers have been testing the prototype for around two years

However, the HoloLens headsets currently in use can trigger various physical ailments in soldiers such as nausea, headaches and eye problems, even in the absence of hypothetical hacker attacks. The US military is therefore demanding an overhaul of the devices, in which US$22 billion in taxpayer money has been invested to date. Unfortunately, instead of the requested US$400 million, Congress has only provided US$40 million to overhaul the unpopular headsets.

Translator: Jacob Fisher – Translator – 276 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2022

Growing up in regional Australia, I first became acquainted with computers in my early teens after a broken leg from a football (soccer) match temporarily condemned me to a predominately indoor lifestyle. Soon afterwards I was building my own systems. Now I live in Germany, having moved here in 2014, where I study philosophy and anthropology. I am particularly fascinated by how computer technology has fundamentally and dramatically reshaped human culture, and how it continues to do so.

Nicole Dominikowski, 2023-10-20 (Update: 2023-10-20)

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