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They Can Hear Your Heartbeats: Non-Invasive Security for Implantable Medical Devices
Sarthak Grover - University of Maryland
Wednesday, November 7, 2012, 2:00-3:00 pm Calendar
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Abstract
Wireless communication has become an intrinsic part of modern
implantable medical devices (IMDs). Recent work, however, has
demonstrated that wireless connectivity can be exploited to compromise
the confidentiality of IMDs’ transmitted data or to send
unauthorized commands to IMDs—even commands that cause the
device to deliver an electric shock to the patient. The key challenge
in addressing these attacks stems from the difficulty of modifying
or replacing already-implanted IMDs. Thus, in this paper, we explore
the feasibility of protecting an implantable device from such
attacks without modifying the device itself. We present a physical layer
solution that delegates the security of an IMD to a personal
base station called the shield. The shield uses a novel radio design
that can act as a jammer-cum-receiver. This design allows it to jam
the IMD’s messages, preventing others from decoding them while
being able to decode them itself. It also allows the shield to jam
unauthorized commands—even those that try to alter the shield’s
own transmissions. We implement our design in a software radio
and evaluate it with commercial IMDs. We find that it effectively
provides confidentiality for private data and protects the IMD from
unauthorized commands.
Bio

Sarthak is a first year PhD student in UMD, with research interests in systems and networking.

This talk is organized by Ramakrishna Padmanabhan