Heartwear Security: A lightweight security protocol for Implantable Medical Devices

Modern Implantable Medical Devices (IMDs) are enabled to communicate with an external device trough wireless channels. The non-invasive method allow health-care practitioners to investigate the effectiveness of a treatment delivered by the IMD and tailor it specifically to the patients' needs. The wireless communication capability however, also facilitates an adversary to gain illegitimate access to the live-saving medical device due to insufficient security measures to establish a secure communication channel. Since there is good reason to safeguard the IMD from prying eyes to avoid access to malicious entities, we present Heartwear, a lightweight security scheme to allow the establishment of a secure wireless communication channel between an IMD and legit external device. Heartwear takes advantage of heartbeat signals in order to provide both key establishment as well as unilateral authentication to protect against attacks of passive and active adversaries.
Computer Science | Cyber Security