NEUROSEC: CYBERSECURITY FOR NEURAL DEVICES

Neurosec is a synergy project of the University Carlos III of Madrid (UC3M) and the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM).

Despite their increasing development, both in the medical and user fields, BCI technologies are immature from a cybersecurity point of view. Different attacks tested in the laboratory have shown how an attacker can disable or reprogram therapies and can even induce a shock in a patient wearing a medical device. Likewise, the attacker could also drain the battery of the device, leaving it inoperative. These facts have motivated the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) to launch several alarms warning about the vulnerabilities of these devices. But not only the FDA, prestigious researchers in the area of neuroscience and technology are already talking about the importance of privacy and protection against non-authorised access in BCI devices, stressing that this is a real and not a potential risk. Motivated by this, they have signed what is known as “NeuroRights” to protect users/patients against the misuse of technology.

The scientific programme of the NEUROSEC project aims to advance along this line, designing new security mechanisms that can be incorporated by design (security & privacy by design) in the new generations of BCI devices.

Please, visit neurosec.es for more information