LifeSec - Do not chop my body!

The number of people with implanted devices is increasing rapidly. In the future more and more people will have multiple implants that must be networked. We have recently shown that the human body’s adipose can be used for radio frequency (RF) communication. By enabling higher data rates than conventional in-body communication methods, our approach makes novel applications such as brain-to-machine interfaces possible.

Observing changes in the RF communication characteristics, our approach can also perform sensing, e.g., to identify relapses of breast cancer tumors. Implanted devices must be effectively secured to avoid life-threatening scenarios where attackers control implanted devices such as pacemakers or insuline pumps, or install malware inside a human's body. We devise a security architecture for networked implanted medical devices that also enables a secure connection of the in-body network to the Internet.

Our architecture ensures confidentiality, integrity and availability of the implanted devices considering also patients' privacy. We develop a demonstrator to highlight LifeSec’s achievements in a realistic setting that is validated by ex- and in-vivo measurements. We have gathered an interdisciplinary consortium with competences in computer science (incl. security), medical engineering, wireless control and clinical end-users. To ensure collaboration with other relevant research initiatives and industrial impact LifeSec, has a carefully selected reference group.