Wearable Smart Devices: Innovations Through AI and Cyberbiosecurity Threats

Abstract

The integration of commercial health wearables (CHWs) with artificial intelligence (AI) has created innovative smart devices that provide continuous monitoring, analysis, and insights to improve health-related outcomes.  They also help users to improve their physical fitness and detect early warning signs of health-related irregularities. Available over-the-counter, certain smartwatches and fitness trackers also aid in combating chronic and debilitating conditions like cardiovascular disease (CVD), which is the leading global cause of death (Brunier et al, 2020; Shajari et al, 2023). Exacerbated by the comorbid prevalence of obesity and diabetes, the treatment and management of CVD in the U.S. amounts to over $840 billion annually (Brunier et al, 2020).  AI-powered CHWs are tools that help individuals make better daily health-related decisions to improve their cardiovascular health and fitness through automated analysis of critical biomarkers (e.g. blood pressure, heart rate, sleep patterns, and physical activity) and generative health-specific text alerts and recommendations. The advancements in cloud-based computing, data storage, nanotechnology in computer engineering, and integration of machine learning algorithms enable the data obtained from CHWs biometric sensors to be analyzed at rapid speeds. The acceptance of CHWs is increasing in popularity. In 2022, North American consumers purchased 42% of smart fitness trackers sold globally amounting to over $52 billion in sales. This commercial biotechnology industry is projected to have an annual growth rate of 17.6% (Laricchia, 2024). While CHWs are empowered by AI-enabled precision healthcare features, they also elevate the risk of cyberbiosecurity (CBS) threats (Jordan et al, 2020; Pauwels, 2023).  CHWs, a repository of network-connected personal biological datasets, are vulnerable to unauthorized access, data corruption, inaccurate health recommendations, denial of user access, and potential risks to health and physical well-being outcomes (Affia et al, 2023). Cybercriminals use networked devices to execute destabilizing and malicious attacks on industries, governments, nations, and individuals causing financial, resource, reputational, and physical harm.  However, CBS is an emerging field that studies the security risks that arise from the convergence of biotechnology systems enabled with internet access (DiEuliis et al, 2018; Guise et al, 2024). To protect against and mitigate CBS threats, consumers and developers of AI-powered CHWs must remain aware of the evolving CBS threats and employ methods to protect against unauthorized cyber breaches.