Security Scores for Medical Devices

Medical devices are indispensable for millions of patients worldwide. They increasingly depend on software and hardware components, and interoperate with other devices wirelessly and through the Internet. The sensitive nature of health records, the increasing interoperability of medical devices, and the fact that human well-being and life are at stake, puts medical device security at the forefront in healthcare technology. In this paper, we contrast medical devices’ safety with their security and introduce a stratification of security scores. We need such a grading to increase security awareness in the medical domain and as a guideline for designers and developers who will have to act appropriately to ensure devices’ trustworthiness and as a basis for stakeholders’ course of action when devices pose risks. We motivate and illustrate the scores by examples.