TY - GEN
T1 - They can hear your heartbeats
T2 - ACM SIGCOMM 2011 Conference, SIGCOMM'11
AU - Gollakota, Shyamnath
AU - Hassanieh, Haitham
AU - Ransford, Benjamin
AU - Katabi, Dina
AU - Fu, Kevin
PY - 2011
Y1 - 2011
N2 - 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 physicallayer 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.
AB - 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 physicallayer 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.
KW - Full-duplex
KW - Implanted medical devices
KW - Wireless
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=80053135174&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=80053135174&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/2018436.2018438
DO - 10.1145/2018436.2018438
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:80053135174
SN - 9781450307970
T3 - Proceedings of the ACM SIGCOMM 2011 Conference, SIGCOMM'11
SP - 2
EP - 13
BT - Proceedings of the ACM SIGCOMM 2011 Conference, SIGCOMM'11
Y2 - 15 August 2011 through 19 August 2011
ER -