Seminar - Cyber-Physical Systems Security: A Pacemaker Case study

School of Engineering and Computer Science Seminar

Speaker: Dr Partha Roop (University of Auckland)
Time: Wednesday 14th November 2018 at 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Location: Cotton Club, Cotton 350
URL: https://unidirectory.auckland.ac.nz/profile/p-roop

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Abstract

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) use distributed embedded devices to control physical processes. In this talk I will explore emerging challenges related to CPS security. In particular, I will elaborate on challenges related to implantable medical devices such as pacemakers.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently recalled approximately 465,000 pacemakers that were vulnerable to hacking. It was reported that hackers could either pace the devices rapidly inducing arrhythmia or could drain the battery. Such actions would compromise the health and well being of the patient concerned. Considering this, techniques to ensure the security of implantable medical devices is an emerging area of research. To the best of our knowledge, existing techniques lack the formal rigour for ensuring the safety and security of such systems. While methods exist for formal verification of pacemaker software, these are not suitable to prevent security vulnerabilities. To this end we develop a run-time verification based approach. Our approach proposes a wearable device that non-invasively senses the familiar ECG signals in order to determine if a pacemaker has been compromised. We develop a set of timed policies to be monitored at run-time. We provide a methodology for the design of the wearable device and results demonstrate the technical feasibility of the developed concept. Towards the latter part of this talk, I will also discuss the potential for run-time enforcement in this setting.

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