Nearly a decade ago, researchers made international news by demonstrating that an implantable medical device — an insulin pump — could be hacked via radio and controlled to the detriment of its user. Even earlier research indicated that heart monitors could be hacked to provide incomplete or erroneous data from their sensors. These two cases shared a trait also shared by most of the implantable medical device security research that has followed.
Most of the research has been focused on how the devices could be manipulated to harm the user. Alan Michaels tries to answer a very different question with his research: Could an implantable medical device be hacked to harm a third party?
Michaels, director of the Electronic Systems Lab at the Virginia Tech Hume Center, has a very specific third party in mind. He's interested in the threat a "rogue" implantable device might pose to a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) — a special facility where sensitive and classified information can be worked on and discussed.
The issue, Michaels says, is that insulin pumps, continuous glucose monitors, heart monitors, and more are electronic devices that have radio communications capabilities. From the viewpoint of the SCIF, the fact that they're involved with human health is almost irrelevant.
"We're all paranoid, you know. I mean, we can pick up what could happen," Michaels explains, "but we also have to be practical about the true risk." And calculating that true risk is the focus of his research.
Part of that risk begins when the devices ..
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