Encryption on the air : non-Invasive security for implantable medical devices

Modern implantable medical devices (IMDs) including pacemakers, cardiac defibrillators and nerve stimulators feature wireless connectivity that enables remote monitoring and post-implantation adjustment. However, recent work has demonstrated that flawed security tempers these medical benefits. In particular, an understandable lack of cryptographic mechanisms results in the IMD disclosing private data and being unable to distinguish authorized from unauthorized commands. In this thesis, we present IMD-Shield; a prototype defenses against a previously proposed suite of attacks on IMDs. IMD-Shield is an external entity that uses a new full dulpex radio design to secure transmissions to and from the IMD on the air wihtout incorporating the IMD itself. Because replacing the install base of wireless-enabled IMDs is infeasible, our system non-invasively enhances the security of unmodified IMDs. We implement and evaluate our mechanism against modern IMDs in a variety of attack scenarios and find that it effectively provides confidentiality for private data and shields the IMD from unauthorized commands.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2011

Author dc:creator

• Al-Hassanieh, Haitham (Haitham Zuhair)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Dina Katabi.

• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/66020

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/66020