Department of Medicine, Mount Sinai Morningside-West, Icahn School of Medicine, New York, New York.
Department of Cardiology, Mount Sinai Morningside, Icahn School of Medicine, New York, New York.
Heart Rhythm. 2021 Mar;18(3):473-481. doi: 10.1016/j.hrthm.2020.10.009. Epub 2020 Oct 12.
Remote monitoring of cardiac implantable electronic devices (CIEDs) has become routine practice as a result of the advances in biomedical engineering, the advent of interconnectivity between the devices through the Internet, and the demonstrated improvement in patient outcomes, survival, and hospitalizations. However, this increased dependency on the Internet of Things comes with risks in the form of cybersecurity lapses and possible attacks. Although no cyberattack leading to patient harm has been reported to date, the threat is real and has been demonstrated in research laboratory scenarios and echoed in patient concerns. The CIED universe comprises a complex interplay of devices, connectivity protocols, and sensitive information flow between the devices and the central cloud server. Various manufacturers use proprietary software and black-box connectivity protocols that are susceptible to hacking. Here we discuss the fundamentals of the CIED ecosystem, the potential security vulnerabilities, a historical overview of such vulnerabilities reported in the literature, and recommendations for improving the security of the CIED ecosystem and patient safety.
远程监测心脏植入式电子设备(CIEDs)已经成为常规实践,这得益于生物医学工程的进步、设备之间通过互联网实现的互联,以及患者预后、生存率和住院率的改善。然而,这种对物联网的过度依赖带来了网络安全漏洞和可能攻击的风险。尽管迄今为止尚未报告导致患者伤害的网络攻击,但威胁是真实存在的,这在研究实验室场景中已经得到证实,并引起了患者的关注。CIED 领域由设备、连接协议以及设备与中央云服务器之间的敏感信息流组成,各种制造商使用易受黑客攻击的专有软件和黑盒连接协议。在这里,我们讨论了 CIED 生态系统的基础、潜在的安全漏洞、文献中报告的此类漏洞的历史概述,以及提高 CIED 生态系统安全性和患者安全性的建议。