LifeSec: Don't Hack my Body! (engelska)

Today, millions of people around the world rely on implanted medical devices (IMDs), such as pacemakers, for life-critical functions. This number is expected to increase tremendously in the future in particular as new application areas for implanted medical devices, such as drug delivery systems, intracranial pressure monitoring devices and artificial kidneys are emerging. A further trend is to network these implanted devices which is necessary since more and more (elderly) people have multiple diseases that can benefit from implanted devices. Moreover, networking these implanted devices also enables new sensing applications within the human body. Nevertheless, some applications cannot be realized today due to a lack of bandwidth inside the body since current in-body communication methods such as capacitive and galvanic coupling do not offer high data rates.

We have recently pioneered a novel approach that addresses exactly these issues: We have shown that the human body’s adipose (fat) tissue can be used as an energy-efficient communication channel for RF-based communication. One major advantage of this approach is that it can support high data rates which helps support multiple sensors and more data-intensive applications such as electronic arms and brain-to-machine interfaces.

While offering exciting opportunities for future health care, implanted devices need to be effectively secured in order to avoid horrible and life-threatening scenarios where attackers control implanted devices such as pacemakers or insulin pumps, or install malware or ransomware inside a human’s body. Since our approach is under development, we can design for security from the beginning rather than adding it at a later stage, which often implies that compromises have to be made that may adventure security.