Data Privacy in Cloud-assisted Healthcare Systems: State of the Art and Future Challenges

The widespread deployment and utility of Wireless Body Area Networks (WBAN’s) in healthcare systems required new technologies like Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud computing, that are able to deal with the storage and processing limitations of WBAN’s. This amalgamation of WBAN-based healthcare systems to cloud-based healthcare systems gave rise to serious privacy concerns to the sensitive healthcare data. Hence, there is a need for the proactive identification and effective mitigation mechanisms for these patient’s data privacy concerns that pose continuous threats to the integrity and stability of the healthcare environment. For this purpose, a systematic literature review has been conducted that presents a clear picture of the privacy concerns of patient’s data in cloud-assisted healthcare systems and analyzed the mechanisms that are recently proposed by the research community. The methodology used for conducting the review was based on Kitchenham guidelines. Results from the review show that most of the patient’s data privacy techniques do not fully address the privacy concerns and therefore require more efforts. The summary presented in this paper would help in setting research directions for the techniques and mechanisms that are needed to address the patient’s data privacy concerns in a balanced and light-weight manner by considering all the aspects and limitations of the cloud-assisted healthcare systems.     

A Lightweight Security Scheme for Wireless Body Area Networks: Design, Energy Evaluation and Proposed Microprocessor Design

In order for wireless body area networks to meet widespread adoption, a number of security implications must be explored to promote and maintain fundamental medical ethical principles and social expectations. As a result, integration of security functionality to sensor nodes is required. Integrating security functionality to a wireless sensor node increases the size of the stored software program in program memory, the required time that the sensor's microprocessor needs to process the data and the wireless network traffic which is exchanged among sensors. This security overhead has dominant impact on the energy dissipation which is strongly related to the lifetime of the sensor, a critical aspect in wireless sensor network (WSN) technology. Strict definition of the security functionality, complete hardware model (microprocessor and radio), WBAN topology and the structure of the medium access control (MAC) frame are required for an accurate estimation of the energy that security introduces into the WBAN. In this work, we define a lightweight security scheme for WBAN, we estimate the additional energy consumption that the security scheme introduces to WBAN based on commercial available off-the-shelf hardware components (microprocessor and radio), the network topology and the MAC frame. Furthermore, we propose a new microcontroller design in order to reduce the energy consumption of the system. Experimental results and comparisons with other works are given.     

A Comprehensive Survey of Wireless Body Area Networks

Recent advances in microelectronics and integrated circuits, system-on-chip design, wireless communication and intelligent low-power sensors have allowed the realization of a Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN). A WBAN is a collection of low-power, miniaturized, invasive/non-invasive lightweight wireless sensor nodes that monitor the human body functions and the surrounding environment. In addition, it supports a number of innovative and interesting applications such as ubiquitous healthcare, entertainment, interactive gaming, and military applications. In this paper, the fundamental mechanisms of WBAN including architecture and topology, wireless implant communication, low-power Medium Access Control (MAC) and routing protocols are reviewed. A comprehensive study of the proposed technologies for WBAN at Physical (PHY), MAC, and Network layers is presented and many useful solutions are discussed for each layer. Finally, numerous WBAN applications are highlighted.     

A WBAN-based Real-time Electroencephalogram Monitoring System: Design and Implementation

In this study, a flexible wireless body area network (WBAN) node platform has been designed and implemented based on the Zigbee technology. In order to provide wide range WBAN for health monitoring, a Zigbee/Internet Gateway (ZiGW) has also been developed rather than using a PDA or a host PC to connect different WBANs by using the Internet as the communication infrastructure. The proposed body sensor node platform promises a cost-effective, flexible platform for developing physical sensor node in real-time health monitoring. The ZiGW can provide an effective method to connect WBAN with the Internet. In this work, we present the implementation of an Electroencephalogram (EEG) monitoring system using the proposed methods. In this proposed system, real-time EEG signals can be remotely monitored by physicians via Internet, and the collected EEG data is stored in the online EEG database which can be shared with physicians or researchers for further analysis.     

A Secure Cloud-Assisted Wireless Body Area Network in Mobile Emergency Medical Care System

Recent advances in medical treatment and emergency applications, the need of integrating wireless body area network (WBAN) with cloud computing can be motivated by providing useful and real time information about patients’ health state to the doctors and emergency staffs. WBAN is a set of body sensors carried by the patient to collect and transmit numerous health items to medical clouds via wireless and public communication channels. Therefore, a cloud-assisted WBAN facilitates response in case of emergency which can save patients’ lives. Since the patient’s data is sensitive and private, it is important to provide strong security and protection on the patient’s medical data over public and insecure communication channels. In this paper, we address the challenge of participant authentication in mobile emergency medical care systems for patients supervision and propose a secure cloud-assisted architecture for accessing and monitoring health items collected by WBAN. For ensuring a high level of security and providing a mutual authentication property, chaotic maps based authentication and key agreement mechanisms are designed according to the concept of Diffie-Hellman key exchange, which depends on the CMBDLP and CMBDHP problems. Security and performance analyses show how the proposed system guaranteed the patient privacy and the system confidentiality of sensitive medical data while preserving the low computation property in medical treatment and remote medical monitoring.     

Provably Secure Heterogeneous Access Control Scheme for Wireless Body Area Network

Wireless body area network (WBAN) provides a medium through which physiological information could be harvested and transmitted to application provider (AP) in real time. Integrating WBAN in a heterogeneous Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem would enable an AP to monitor patients from anywhere and at anytime. However, the IoT roadmap of interconnected ‘Things’ is still faced with many challenges. One of the challenges in healthcare is security and privacy of streamed medical data from heterogeneously networked devices. In this paper, we first propose a heterogeneous signcryption scheme where a sender is in a certificateless cryptographic (CLC) environment while a receiver is in identity-based cryptographic (IBC) environment. We then use this scheme to design a heterogeneous access control protocol. Formal security proof for indistinguishability against adaptive chosen ciphertext attack and unforgeability against adaptive chosen message attack in random oracle model is presented. In comparison with some of the existing access control schemes, our scheme has lower computation and communication cost.     

Seamless Interworking Architecture for WBAN in Heterogeneous Wireless Networks with QoS Guarantees

The IEEE 802.15.6 standard is a communication standard optimized for low-power and short-range in-body/on-body nodes to serve a variety of medical, consumer electronics and entertainment applications. Providing high mobility with guaranteed Quality of Service (QoS) to a WBAN user in heterogeneous wireless networks is a challenging task. A WBAN uses a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) to gather data from body sensors and forwards it to a remote server through wide range wireless networks. In this paper, we present a coexistence study of WBAN with Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN) and Wireless Wide Area Networks (WWANs). The main issue is interworking of WBAN in heterogenous wireless networks including seamless handover, QoS, emergency services, cooperation and security. We propose a Seamless Interworking Architecture (SIA) for WBAN in heterogenous wireless networks based on a cost function. The cost function is based on power consumption and data throughput costs. Our simulation results show that the proposed scheme outperforms typical approaches in terms of throughput, delay and packet loss rate.     

Security and Privacy Issues in Wireless Sensor Networks for Healthcare Applications

The use of wireless sensor networks (WSN) in healthcare applications is growing in a fast pace. Numerous applications such as heart rate monitor, blood pressure monitor and endoscopic capsule are already in use. To address the growing use of sensor technology in this area, a new field known as wireless body area networks (WBAN or simply BAN) has emerged. As most devices and their applications are wireless in nature, security and privacy concerns are among major areas of concern. Due to direct involvement of humans also increases the sensitivity. Whether the data gathered from patients or individuals are obtained with the consent of the person or without it due to the need by the system, misuse or privacy concerns may restrict people from taking advantage of the full benefits from the system. People may not see these devices safe for daily use. There may also possibility of serious social unrest due to the fear that such devices may be used for monitoring and tracking individuals by government agencies or other private organizations. In this paper we discuss these issues and analyze in detail the problems and their possible measures.     

RACOON: A Multiuser QoS Design for Mobile Wireless Body Area Networks

In this study, Random Contention-based Resource Allocation (RACOON) medium access control (MAC) protocol is proposed to support the quality of service (QoS) for multi-user mobile wireless body area networks (WBANs). Different from existing QoS designs that focus on a single WBAN, a multiuser WBAN QoS should further consider both inter-WBAN interference and inter-WBAN priorities. Similar problems have been studied in both overlapped wireless local area networks (WLANs) and Bluetooth piconets that need QoS supports. However, these solutions are designed for non-medical transmissions that do not consider any priority scheme for medical applications. Most importantly, these studies focus on only static or low mobility networks. Network mobility of WBANs will introduce unnecessary inter-network collisions and energy waste, which are not considered by these solutions. The proposed multiuser-QoS protocol, RACOON, simultaneously satisfies the inter WBAN QoS requirements and overcomes the performance degradation caused by WBAN mobility. Simulation results verify that RACOON provides better latency and energy control, as compared with WBAN QoS protocols without considering the inter-WBAN requirements.     

An Efficient Remote Authentication Scheme for Wireless Body Area Network

Wireless body area network (WBAN) provide a mechanism of transmitting a persons physiological data to application providers e.g. hospital. Given the limited range of connectivity associated with WBAN, an intermediate portable device e.g. smartphone, placed within WBAN’s connectivity, forwards the data to a remote server. This data, if not protected from an unauthorized access and modification may be lead to poor diagnosis. In order to ensure security and privacy between WBAN and a server at the application provider, several authentication schemes have been proposed. Recently, Wang and Zhang proposed an authentication scheme for WBAN using bilinear pairing. However, in their scheme, an application provider could easily impersonate a client. In order to overcome this weakness, we propose an efficient remote authentication scheme for WBAN. In terms of performance, our scheme can not only provide a malicious insider security, but also reduce running time of WBAN (client) by 51 % as compared to Wang and Zhang scheme.