# Towards Realistic Battery-DoS Protection of Implantable Medical Devices

## TL;DR

This paper reviews and establishes design guidelines for Zero-Power Defense techniques, leveraging energy harvesting, to protect implantable medical devices from battery depletion attacks caused by continuous authentication requests.

## Contribution

It provides essential design specifications, critically reviews existing ZPD techniques, and offers recommendations for comprehensive ZPD solutions in IMDs.

## Key findings

- Established key design specifications for ZPD in IMDs
- Critically reviewed existing ZPD techniques in literature
- Provided recommendations for developing effective ZPD solutions

## Abstract

Modern Implantable Medical Devices (IMDs) feature wireless connectivity, which makes them vulnerable to security attacks. Particular to IMDs is the battery Denial-of-Service attack whereby attackers aim to fully deplete the battery by occupying the IMD with continuous authentication requests. Zero-Power Defense (ZPD) based on energy harvesting is known to be an excellent protection against these attacks. This paper establishes essential design specifications for employing ZPD techniques in IMDs, offers a critical review of ZPD techniques found in literature and, subsequently, gives crucial recommendations for developing comprehensive ZPD solutions.