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Hacking a Pacemaker 228
jonkman sean writes "University researchers conducted research into how they can gain wireless access to pacemakers, hacking them. They will be presenting their findings at the "Attacks" session of the 2008 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy. Their previous work (PDF) noted that over 250,000 implantable cardiac defibrillators are installed in patients each year. This subject was first raised along with similar issues as a credible security risk in Gadi Evron's CCC Camp 2007 lecture "hacking the bionic man"."
Bionic eye (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh yeah, the oblig: We are cyborg. You will be assimilated. resistance is not only futile but you won't resist, you'll beg to join us..
Re:Bionic eye (Score:4, Interesting)
Pacemakers are [i]implanted[/i] under the skin. The only way to interface with them is through induction or radio signals. The signals have ranges measured in centimeters.
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As an added precaution, some manufacturers (at least Biotronic IMHO) have devices which only communicate when a magnet is placed near (again centimeters) the device, thus closing a magnetic switch and enabling communication.
Th
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Not quite.. The pacemakers send data to a bedside device that then relays the information gathered to the Internet. Not really the same. No pacemaker will connect to the internet directly, it doesn't make any sense to do so.
Re:Bionic eye (Score:5, Funny)
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This is off the topic for the summary (but on topic for your comment) but if Cheney goes duck hunting with Bush we could have the first woman President.
If Cheney shoots Bush in the face [msn.com] accidentally while duck hunting (well it happened once before, I'd never go hunting with him) and suffers a heart attack as a result, and both die, then House Speaker Nanct Pelosi [wikipedia.org] becomes President Pelosi.
One can only wish!
M
Unfortunately (Score:2)
Still, I'd like to see proof of concept. There is no such thing as "guaranteed short range" in wireless. My Bluetooth headset has a 50-foot range in the right locations.
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Re:Bionic eye (Score:5, Insightful)
Um, yes you do. Do you want them to have to cut you open because you don't like the maximum pacing rate and want to have it reduced by 5 bpm ?
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Finding out which settings you like or don't like unfortunately involves putting a pacemaker into you first. Of course, you could go with a completely dumb device, but your heart would be paced too fast when you're asleep and too slow when you're physically active.
Re:Bionic eye (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Bionic eye (Score:4, Interesting)
Public-Private Key cryptography. The manufacturer has a public key, and it's embedded into the device. The manufacturer's private key is kept secret in the same way as the PKI people do it; there are multiple parties required to do anything to the key, there is armed security 24/7, and the key is treated as if people's lives depend on it because that's the situation. There's a process to go through for a hospital to get certified to update the device. When the hospital certifies a doctor to update the device, the doctor's public key is signed by the manufacturer's private key. The doctor keeps his private key on a smart card that requires a PIN with the full knowledge that people could die if he loses it. Preferably the smart cards are kept under lock and key at the hospital next to the lethal drugs and the morphine. When an update command is done, a specially formatted message is signed by the doctor's private key, and the message is send along with the doctor's certificate (the doctor's public key signed by the manufacturer's private key). If there's no valid certificate or the message format is not correct, no command interpretation takes place. If everything checks out, the command is logged in onboard flash memory and the device updates. If someone's pacemaker is updated in a manner that kills them, there is an audit trail pointing to exactly who's at fault. I don't care how much more expensive it is, particularly when the answer is 'not very.'
People's lives are at stake here, the manufacturers should be held liable and negligible if they aren't using already existing methods that essentially guarantee security.
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Oh for crying out loud - don't be ridiculous. These are pacemakers not PCs. Get some perspective. It doesn't have the capability that you seem to be thinking it does.
And right now you have to be in contact to reprogram. It's not like anyone is at risk of being hacked from down the street or anything.
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Yes, its all nice and simple to the software guy that doesn't know what he is talking about.
Yes what you are asking is possible but it's prohibitively expensive, pointless, and adds ZERO benefit to the patient. In fact because of the extra power draw of this pointless device the patient will have to undergo extra surgeries to replace the battery more ofter thereby further jeopardizing the patient safety.
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Sure. Will you ship your secure, encrypted pacemaker with an external power supply to plug it in ?
Sheesh. These things don't come with a multi-core desktop CPU. They're ultra low-power systems, optimized for battery life because changing the battery requires surgery, which already puts your life at stake (Sorry - cutting your chest open isn't trivial. And the chance of something bad happening during or after surgery (infection, complications with the anesthesia, etc), as
Re:Bionic eye (Score:4, Informative)
I'm an EE with a lot of embedded experience in RF devices. I've had to make recalls because the standby current* was 50uA instead of 12uA. (For a GPS tracking board with VHF transmitter.)
The level of misunderstanding that's required to think that you can surreptitiously reprogram somebody's pacemaker without their knowledge is astounding. If you've got a pacemaker and someone tries to walk up to you and reprogram your chest, just walk away, man. Walk away. It's not like it's going to take 2 seconds to line everything up correctly. Even if all the technical details are magically sorted, a different brand could make your hack useless. So could temperature, humidity, clothing, chest hair, and any of the other RF voodoo things that you have to deal with.
*(Technically "quiescent" but I'm not sure everyone knows what that means.)
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Sure, a few chips have built-in single-line multipliers, but I don't think that's what they use in pacemakers.The pacemaker
Re:Bionic eye (Score:4, Insightful)
The thing is that this private key needs to be sent to every hospital and doctor's office which wants to make adjustments to the pacemaker. They'll have it, whether it's embedded in a chip or written in a config file. You have to make this information public in some sense, the very best you could hope to do is use some kind of DRM to protect the key from exposure, but as we all know, such exercises are fated to failure.
And what happens when a pacemaker manufacturer discontinues a line and stops manufacturing the equipment to tune certain kinds of pacemakers (such as would be expected to happen should a key be discovered), do these patients just have to hope that the equipment used for tuning their pacemaker outlives them?
Also, will doctors and hospitals have to buy dozens of different pacemaker adjustment machines, one of every type, even those they don't install themselves so that they can treat patients who move into the area? What happens when the patient needs emergency adjustment of his pacemaker but doesn't remember the model he has (or isn't conscious)?
Finally, these devices don't exactly have little general purpose CPU's in them. One of their biggest concerns is decent battery life. If we put something in there as computationally intensive as strong private/public key cryptography, you're going to significantly hurt the battery life of these devices.
This problem is not as simple as it seems on the surface. It turns out that human life is fragile, and there are many ways in which you can kill someone, some of them even require little effort to kill many people. Hacking this device in a way that endangers other humans would not even need new laws to be punishable since we fortunately already have laws which surround murder, reckless endangerment, and other such things which actually or reasonably could result in the death or injury of other humans.
Re:Bionic eye (Score:4, Insightful)
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Based on what I know about non-specialists designing security into ad hoc network protocols, I'm not very optimistic about biomedical engineers getting it rig
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Re:Bionic eye (Score:5, Informative)
pacemakers (Score:5, Funny)
Don't fear.... much (Score:5, Insightful)
One:
Similarly the argument that it took $30,000 worth of equipment and a 'team of experts' is retarded because the same might probably have been said about DVD encryption till an adolescent did it in his bedroom with his home computer and enough caffeine.
If I had an AICD, I sure as hell wouldn't want to be around Cheney, lest the signal from mine be confused with his. Of course maybe that is why he has a man sized safe in his office is a Faraday cage.
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Not only that, but let's say the President of the United States has a pacemaker... $30000 is pittance for someone who wants him dead.
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Now you only need to get that $30000 worth of lab equipment (= big and bulky) within a few inches of your intended victims chest ...
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Re:Don't fear.... much (Score:5, Informative)
In the worst case scenarios, either 1) put a donut magnet over it and it can be stopped or 2) give me a scalpel and 30 seconds and I can cut the leads, and then we can externally pace and/or defibrillate the person.
So I am not sure that the risk of being password protected would outweigh the risk of not being password protected. I'd want mine password protected, then put the password on a medic-alert bracelet that I wear.
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You know what else rifles do ? They make a lot of noise and splatter a lot of blood eveyrwhere, making the cause of death extremely clear to even the dumbest coroner or bystander. Not only that, but nearly everyone in the world knows what a rifle is and looks like, so if someone was shot dead and you were seen with a rifle in your hands anywhere near,
But why? (Score:2, Insightful)
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Life imitates art (Score:2)
% The Simpsons happen upon Krusty, who is having a Y2K crisis of his
% own. His pacemaker is stuck in the "hummingbird" mode. Krusty
% lifts himself in the air briefly by flapping his arms, before
% collapsing on the ground.
See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treehouse_of_Horror_X#Life.27s_a_Glitch.2C_Then_You_Die [wikipedia.org]
-theGreater.
Easy fix (Score:2)
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Just shut it off (Score:2, Insightful)
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I guess it's psychological. We humans don't like being reminded of how
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This can be used to stop a lot of 'runaway pacer' issues (which almost never happen with modern devices), and I suspect a lot of potential hacks. However it doesn't precisely shut it off. But it does solve a lot of problems.
Wait for it (Score:5, Funny)
So they can crack RSA and then get the pacemaker? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:So they can crack RSA and then get the pacemake (Score:5, Interesting)
The government have escrow keys (Score:2)
A better method (Score:5, Interesting)
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Yes, in science fiction novels.
EMP *theory* has been around for quite a while, but the devices aren't real (unless you count atomic explosions).
To be clear for everyone here on Slashdot, there is no such thing as an EMP device. It's theoretical science fiction, just like wormholes and space elevators. Get over it.
Vivid imagery (Score:2)
"Excuse me, sir? The plane is about to taxi, and I'm going to need you to shut down your wireless internet device."
Some day in my lifetime, a person's heart might have "flight mode." That idea bowls me over. I'm assuming this is some kind of cellular internet connection the devices use. Fifteen seconds of google didn't really turn up much info, but then again I wasn't
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My base unit doesn't have internet connectivity, though I suppose it potentially could be done that way someday.
Obligitory Bionic Man Reference.. (Score:2)
"nah nah nah nahhhhhhhhh"
It's not that bad (Score:2, Interesting)
I think the summary is more alarming than the actual article. The researchers had to be at two inches from the device in order to tamper with it.
It's probably not such a big deal now, but some more thought should definitely go into future products. 30000$ sound like much, but it certainly sounds like a bargain if you can kill the Vice President of the USA without even touching him.
I mean, imagine the following scenario:
1. Bad guys want to kill Cheney
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1. Bad guys want to kill Cheney. That seems quite plausible.
2. Secret Service anticipates this. NSA and the Office of the Sergeant at Arms of the U.S. Senate are tasked to establish and test a set of security controls.
3. Pursuant to applicable FISMA, OMB, NIST and DoD regulations, it is determined that Cheney's pacemaker must undergo Certification and Accreditation under DIACAP (Doing Information Assurance on Cheney's Automatic Pacemaker) throughout the VP's Life Cycl
Oh, great timing (Score:2)
Insider (Score:3, Insightful)
Yee-ha! (Score:5, Funny)
I'm gonna overclock this sucker!
Better than a triple espresso!
Build your own joke: (Score:2)
Gives a whole new meaning to Force-Feedback (Score:2)
I can also just imagine installing Vista remotely onto the pacemakers of all those Windows fanboys.
Some health care insurance / hospitals may want to (Score:3, Informative)
Some of them have said that a kidney transplant is to experimental and they let a someone die just to get out of paying for it.
There was movie about some put bombs in Pacemakers (Score:2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_in_a_Heartbeat [wikipedia.org]
When my pacemaker is tested (Score:4, Interesting)
It is a truly heartfelt experience.
Bookwormhole.net [bookwormhole.net] -- a site for book lovers.
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I almost cried as I realized I had just been outgeeked, since I would never be allowed to operate the control panel. My doctor has toys that I cannot play with.
Friday, Jan. 26, 2007? (Score:2)
In the not too distant future... (Score:2)
H4 H4 H1 GR4NNY W3 H4XX0RS U! W3 RuL3!
(Meanwhile, Granny clutches at her chest as her pace maker pulses out the drum solo from "In A Gadda Da Vida")
Dealing with the threat (Score:2)
What IS a problem is that unlike other means to kill a person at close range, this m
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Insulin pumps too! (Score:3, Insightful)
Several months ago she upgraded to a new pump. This new model (a Medtronic MiniMed) wirelessly communicates with a number of devices. It receives blood glucose data from a continuous glucose monitor. It also receives her regular readings from her standard "prick your finger" blood sugar tests via her test kit. And, it has a wireless key fob that allows her to adjust the pumps settings without having to dig through pockets and clothes to get at the unit.
My first comment to her was "With all of this wireless control, how easy is it for someone to use this wireless interface to put you into a diabetic coma, or worse, kill you?" She thinks it's a fairly ridiculous concept, citing encryption, receiver range, and "Why would anyone want to kill me?", among other reasons.
Well, I say that anything that has any type of wireless interface is hackable. There are, of course, no published documents that I can find detailing what steps have been taken to secure these devices. I'm seriously concerned as to whether or not the companies that make insulin pumps, pace makers, implants, etc, may not be taking these concerns seriously.
Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, but the purpose of this device is unclear. What exactly is it pacing ?
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However, the notion that the heart is somehow related to empathy and love is also false. Instead, he had that section of his brain surgically removed. It helps him collect himself faster after his 3pm puppy kicking and orphanage closing.
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Yup, he has the heart of a 20 year old.
It's in a jar on his desk.
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Re:remote kill? (Score:5, Interesting)
The technology for that already exists; it's called a "gun". It replaced an older technology called an "arrow", which in turn was the replacement for an even older technology called the "javelin". There was also an older technology called a "sling" which was a peripheral device designed to increase the effectiveness of the original technology call the "rock".
People have been remotely killing other people for millions of years.
Re:remote kill? (Score:5, Insightful)
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With this, you need no vantage point, no hiding place, you don't need to wait till they are in some opportune location, there's no risk of detec
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That leaves a hole in the market , namely defensive devices this , like a tin foil t-shirt , sweater , etc
Together we will make millions .
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More interestingly: get away with it (Score:2, Insightful)
Hacking the VP (Score:5, Funny)
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Nevermind that, the burning question is will Clinton use this to scare us out of voting for McCain? He should be due for a pace maker soon if he doesn't already have one.
That kind of attitude is the problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, no, there are w
Re:That kind of attitude is the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Because sticking a JTAG connector through someones chest is fairly painful. You're welcome to experiment on yourself to confirm this.
Also, it's not a WiFi interface. It's a short-range (it goes through your chest, and water absorbs radio waves like crazy), custom, wireless interface. You have no freaking need for those to be networked, in any form or shape.
And you're, what ? An M.D. ? A biomedical engineer ?
Tell you what: Have fun with your dumb fixed-rate 75 bpm pacemaker, but don't expect to be running up any stairs anytime soon.
Any interface to it or from it can be contact-based just as well.
It basically is, genius. Or do you want it so contact-based that they have to shoot a couple of amps through your chest in order to make the pacemaker respond ? Hint: Think of a vital organ that's very, very close to the pacemaker and reacts very badly to having current shot through it.
More importantly, we already do _both_ of those for life-and-death systems like flight control systems on airplanes or brake computers on cars. They're both built and reviewed to be as good as bulletproof, _and_ not wired to talk to the outside world, unless one physically plugs in a special connector and a special computer into it.
They're also conveniently located outside the human body, so plugging a special connector into them doesn't involve going through someones tissue first.
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While I agree with your post, don't forget that electricity and radio are not the only ways to communicate..
This seems like a situation where ultrasonic (or even just sonic) communication might be very useful! You could at
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If you had unlimited power, maybe. Just maybe.
You could attach a voice coil to the inside shell of the pace maker.
The acoustic impedance mismatch between the case of the pacemaker and the surrounding tissue will make this virtually impossible. You might get away with having the US transmitter on the outside, but this opens up the device for all kinds of nasty biocompatibility / degradation issues an
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Ah, the smart-arse non-sequiturs (Score:2, Interesting)
So basically you're telling me that you have to have an external thing strapped to your chest, full time, for it deal with that? I thought they were programmed by a cardiologist once, and left on their own afterwards.
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Simply because there is no point in making them more secure - there's no need. If there is no need then it should n't be done.
These devices are not practically hackable. To reprogram one you need direct skin contact - it cannot be reprogrammed from across the room. I doubt anyone will not notice this being done to them.
The device doesn't have the capacity to do encryption like you are implying. If you made one that did i
Re:Ah, the smart-arse non-sequiturs (Score:5, Informative)
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With the encryption that you say your company uses, wouldn't it simply be a matter of acquiring a single sending device, and reverse engineering it?
No. The individual communication session is protected by a unique key. Still, if you physically had a programmer (the sending device you mentioned), you could use it without any hack
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Well it's not a pacemaker, it's a combination pacemaker/defibrilator. The second part is the reason why it can "deliver potentially fatal jolts" - that's just the range a defibrilator operates in. A connection via the internet allows a doctor to be notified of problems while the patient is at home, and the doctor could even take corrective actions right away. That's presumably why one of the doctors involved in this investigation said "If I needed a defi
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The excuse is that people are not willing to spend the difference it would cost to make it bulletproof. There are diminishing returns (even on life-saving devices) which people won't recognize or spend on.
Imagine walking into a doctor's office being presented with two (apparently) identical d
Re:Easy solution (Score:5, Funny)
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