Cybersecurity Analysis for a Remote Drug Dosing and Adherence Monitoring System

Abstract

Remote health monitoring and medication systems are becoming prevalent owing to the advances in sensing and connectivity technologies as well as the social and economical demands due to high health care costs as well as low availability of skilled health care providers. The significance of such devices and coordination are also highlighted in the context of recent pandemic outbreaks underlying the need for physical distancing as well as even lock-downs globally. Though such devices bring forth large scale benefits, being the safety critical nature of such applications, one has to be vigilant regarding the potential risk factors. Apart from the device and application level faults, ensuring the secure operation becomes paramount due to increased network connectivity of these systems and services. In this paper, we present a systematic approach for identification of cyber threats and vulnerabilities and how to mitigate them in the context of remote medication and monitoring devices. We specifically elaborate our approach and present the results using a case study of an electronic medication device.