Designing Automated Malware Detection for Life-Critical Systems
Funded by the National Science Foundation and an International Research and Program Development grant from the University of Arizona, ECE professor Roman Lysecky has created multimodal software for life-critical systems -- including pacemakers, insulin pumps, radiation therapy, clinical laboratory systems, autonomous vehicles and airplanes -- that allows the systems to automatically detect and mitigate threats.
Current approaches for dealing with vulnerabilities require either firmware updates that need oversight to ensure safety or replacing the faulty device, which can involve measures as invasive as surgery.
“In both cases, such updates are not fixed as soon as a vulnerability is found,” Lysecky said. “Our technology solves these problems by automatically detecting threats and reconfiguring the system into a different operational mode to mitigate the threat. This ensures continuity of these life-critical operations.”
Tech Launch Arizona, the office of the UA that commercializes inventions stemming from research, features an interview with Lysecky in their Tech Blog video series.