Research Introduction:

Proposal: Many recipients of biomedical devices are unaware of the cybersecurity risks of their devices.

Hypothesis: Recipients of pacemakers, both current and future, from companies that do not secure their devices from the internet will change their mind on the device when informed about the risks involved.

Literature Review:

Discuss the different manufactures of pacemakers both good and bad, discuss the risks involved for biomedical devices that are connected to the internet but not secured, and discuss the amount of knowledge the average recipient knows about these risks.

Methodology:

We will take two groups of of 15 people each. Group A will be individuals who have already received a pacemaker from a company that we know has not secured their devices from IoT. Group B will be made up of people who are set to receive a pacemaker from a company who has not secured their devices from IoT.

We will do a semi-structured interview with each person one by one with the shared questions being: Did the hospital give you brand options? Were you aware of the cybersecurity risks of this pacemaker being able to be hacked and potentially stop your heart? Knowing this information will you still be going with that hospital and brand / If you knew this information prior to receiving your pacemaker would you still have gone with that hospital and brand?

Discussion:

Potential for further studies:

• How many other biomedical devices are not secure and not being disclosed to patients who receive them?
• Are hospitals using full transparency in plain English about biomedical devices with their patients?

Weakness of Study:

• Having to get people to fully disclose their medical history with the researchers
• Study could take a very long time to complete due to having to find people who are in the process of getting a pacemaker

Strength of Study:

• This is already known to be a problem within the medical community so bringing light of it to the average person could force companies to fix it.
• Could cause people to start being more medically conscious about new medical technology