Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
In this chapter, we present a comprehensive
survey of the state of the art research in the field
of BSN security and privacy. We identify the
main security challenges introduced by BSNs
by thoroughly analyzing the specifics of this
category of wireless sensor networks and present
the prominent security and privacy architectures
available to protect BSN infrastructures. The
presented protocols are categorized based on the
security services they provide.
The chapter then focuses on two main chal-
lenges that we believe are the most critical in the
BSN security and privacy context:
To provide a practical insight into the presented
concepts, this chapter presents an overview of the
main cryptographic APIs available in popular sen-
sor networks operating systems such as TinyOS
(Levis et al., 2005) and recommends a collection
of best practices and usage patterns for developing
secure sensor health care applications and services.
We conclude by presenting a blueprint BSN
security framework employing a secure combi-
nation of the technical building blocks described
in the chapter sections. Recommendations on the
advantages and drawbacks of each building block
are suggested whenever the latter is added to the
security framework.
The rest of this chapter is organized as fol-
lows: in the next section we provide background
material on some cryptographic schemes that are
widely used in BSN security protocols. In the
third section we discuss the concept of biometric
human identification with BSNs and build on it to
describe a biometric BSN key agreement protocol
in the fourth section. The fifth section presents the
security protocols for ensuring the confidentiality
and integrity of the patient's data when commu-
nicated among the sensor nodes. This is followed
by a description of an identity-based encryption
privacy preservation scheme for securing the
patient's data privacy on the sensor nodes and
in remote storage sites in the sixth section. The
seventh and eighth sections respectively discuss
the tradeoffs that should be maintained between
security and energy and between privacy and
safety when designing BSN security and privacy
protocols. In the ninth section we present some
cryptographic libraries and API implementations
for securing data communication in sensor net-
works. The tenth section summarizes the protocols
presented in the chapter by presenting a set of
blueprint guidelines for designing BSN security
and privacy protocols. Conclusions are presented
in the eleventh section.
1. Achieving the correct balance between
the complexity of the employed protocol
security operations and the energy consump-
tion they incur. On this front we identify
and analyze suitable security constructs
and mechanisms to minimize computation
and communication requirements without
compromising the safety and privacy of the
patient and the availability and usability of
the BSN monitoring system.
2. Attaining the right tradeoff between privacy
and safety by utilizing the patient's vital
signals and other context-related informa-
tion to minimize the amount of private data
required by the medical staff to execute
a particular healthcare procedure. This
property has been researched in the field
of context-aware systems which quantify
the privacy requirements of the application
and makes the release of this information
under the direct control and consent of the
patient. Context-aware systems provide a
policy-based access control and privacy
preservation mechanism that controls the
BSN information disclosure in critical and
emergency situations when the patient is
unconscious due to an accident, or incapable
of generating reliable decisions as in the case
of heart attacks or epileptic seizures.
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