Heart-to-heart (H2H)

We present Heart-to-Heart (H2H), a system to authenticate external medical device controllers and programmers to Implantable Medical Devices (IMDs). IMDs, which include pacemakers and cardiac defibrillators, are therapeutic medical devices partially or wholly embedded in the human body. They often have built-in radio communication to facilitate non-invasive reprogramming and data readout. Many IMDs, though, lack well designed authentication protocols, exposing patients to over-the-air attack and physical harm.