George Mason University’s Center for Infrastructure Security in the Era of AI (ISEAI)’s Sanchari Das, Assistant Professor in the Department of Information Sciences and Technology, has received funding through the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI) to lead a collaborative research project with Adeen Ayub, Assistant Professor of Computer Science at James Madison University (JMU). The project focuses on strengthening the cybersecurity of hospital operating rooms and intensive care units using explainable and privacy-preserving artificial intelligence.
Many hospital control systems were designed without modern cybersecurity protections, relying on weak authentication, unencrypted telemetry, and vulnerable control logic. As a result, they are increasingly exposed to cyberattacks that could disrupt airflow, disable emergency generators, or compromise patient safety during critical moments.
The research focuses on developing an AI-driven anomaly detection framework tailored to hospital environments. By learning normal operational behavior in HVAC and power systems, the approach can identify deviations that may indicate cyber intrusions or malicious manipulation. To enable collaboration across hospitals while respecting healthcare privacy requirements, the framework incorporates privacy-preserving training techniques that allow models to be developed collectively without sharing sensitive operational data.
A key component of the work is explainability. Rather than producing opaque alerts, the system provides interpretable insights that connect detected anomalies to specific operational conditions, such as abnormal airflow patterns in operating rooms or delays in generator startup in intensive care units. These explanations are designed to help clinical engineers and hospital operators quickly understand risks and take informed action.
The project team will evaluate the framework using a hospital testbed that replicates real-world operating room HVAC and ICU power systems under realistic cyberattack scenarios. By combining expertise in human-centered cybersecurity and industrial control system security, the project advances CCI’s mission to strengthen the resilience of Virginia’s critical infrastructure, particularly in the healthcare sector where reliable and trustworthy system behavior is essential for patient safety.