CICI: UCSS: Human-Centered Cybersecurity in Robotic Surgery (HCCRS) - Coordinating the Human and Cyber Infrastructure for Cybersecurity

Robotic-assisted surgery cyberinfrastructure combines advanced data analytics and decision making in the cloud with interconnected Internet of Things-based systems that has brought opportunities for advanced diagnostics, patient monitoring, and personalized medicine. However, the increased data and resource sharing enabled by these devices and artificial intelligence in the robotic-assisted surgery infrastructure has increased vulnerabilities and opportunities for cyberattacks.

In particular, data-integrity attacks that interfere with critical real-time data can potentially disrupt surgical performance and compromise patient safety. Existing studies on cyberinfrastructure security in these environments do not fully consider users’ cybersecurity awareness and knowledge or evaluate training and mitigation for cyberattacks.

This project aims to create a Human-Centered Cybersecurity in Robotic Surgery (HCCRS) framework by integrating data analytics and healthcare human factors to design new human-centered algorithms to detect, identify, and mitigate cyberattacks in the robotic surgery cyberinfrastructure. The HCCRS framework will lead to sustained impact that can be translated to other digital health technologies and generalized to the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education Cybersecurity Workforce Framework.

This work addresses the critical gap in cybersecurity for surgical care. Specifically, the following research aims are studied: (1) identify robotic surgery cybersecurity perspectives of stakeholders through qualitative research approaches; (2) design a data-driven human-centered attack detection and identification framework using Graphical Neural Networks-based impact quantification and multimodal high-dimensional data fusion techniques; and (3) develop and validate robotic surgery cybersecurity training materials and an cyberattack intervention system.

This work enhances the performance and usability of current and future heterogenous robotic surgery cyberinfrastructures.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.