Implementation of IOT in Health Care System-Samples for Students

Question: Discuss about the Implementation Of IoT In Health Care System. Answer: Introduction Internet of things has evolved over the years, thanks to the advancement of various interconnected technologies like IPv6, wireless network and microcontroller and sensor electronics. The evolution of the IoT has heavily influenced various sectors like business, sports, health and many more. IoT in healthcare is an important research topic as the technology has lot of potentials for the sector in terms of bringing more automation and transparency in healthcare administrations (Gope Hwang, 2016 ). However the threats that the technology poses along with the benefits needs careful attentions. The task to control the systems and integrate it with the IoT technology is indeed challenging. Researchers are particularly concern about this, even more than the benefits that the system will provide following the implementation . Different methods have been provided by different researchers to control IoT devices and the topic has managed to get widespread attentions and provides an excellent opportunity to conduct further research in the field to come up with even better solutions (Wu et al., 2017). Data protection is one of the critical issues that need to be considered when dealing with the network devices. Security plays a vital role in the context of IoT technology (Tyagi , Agarwal Maheswari , 2016). In case there is a malicious attack or interference takes place and the attacker becomes successful in hacking the network of the system then they will be able to steal important data that is intended to be kept safe and private for the data is highly sensitive in nature. In order to protect the devices from outside access that is intended for illegal purpose, it is important to have the correct security measure in practise. Authentication has an important role to play to ensure security of the IoT devices. Different researchers have provided different mechanism for authentication for the IoT devices and network (Bhatt, Dey Ashour, 2017). However the mechanisms have certain drawbacks. The mechanisms have not considered the limitations of IoT devices which have often very limit ed resources in terms of memory and processing power. In order to design effective authentication techniques it is important to combine the characteristics of the end devices and a proper balance should be maintained between the available resources so that efficient, secure and suitable authentication mechanism can be designed that suits the need of the IoT environment (Laplante Laplante , 2016). Here the overall introduction of the topic is given. Factors like importance of the topic, justification for the topic selections and the need for the research on the topic have been discussed. The process to ensure the data security in IoT is challenging task. The report will discuss the methods to ensure the data security and how it can be implemented using the ECC authentication algorithm. Background/Literature Review Li et al.,( 2018) have talked about the importance of RFID technology for the device authentication in the IOT environment. RFID or the radio frequency identification technology helps to identify a device remotely with the RFID tag. The authors points out that RFID technology is highly efficient I recognizing devices. The authors further add that in the IOT environment, millions of devices are connected to the internet and with each other as well. Hence it is important to implement techniques that can help to identify the devices amongst the polls of connected devices. RFID technology has lot of potential in this context. RFID tags has the ability to store information and send this information remotely, thus enabling the wireless communication between the devices and the database that store information about this devices. This information can be then used for the identification of the devices. However the authors suggest that there should be proper data monitoring technology in order to derive useful information from the data sent by the devices connected over IP network. Once the data is sent by the smart and RFID enabled devices over the IP network, the data is then processed in the central data base and converted into human readable format. One of the most important features that make RFID tags more efficient than the standard barcode technology is the ability of the RFID tag to support more advanced communication style. In order to read information from the RFID tag it is not mandatory for the device to be in the line of sight which means that the device can be tracked from anywhere. In the IOT environment, wireless communication plays an important role and technology like this, according to the authors, only increase the efficiency of the communication with ease in device identification. Lopes Hilgert (2017) have proposed for two phase algorithm for group authentication: pre authentication phase and group authentication phase In the pre authentication phase the GA of the group who is responsible for creating the group generates a public key and associated private keys. This keys are then used for authenticate the devices in the group. The keys are generated using the threshold cryptosystem. In the group authentication phase the authenticity of every devices in the group is checked using the private and public keys that were generated in the pre authentication phase. The GA in this phase creates another random secret key that is shared among all the devices in the group and the devices need to address the random key to complete the authentication process in the group authentication phase. Jan et al., (2016) have provided a mutual authentication schema for the IoT implementation in health care. This schema helps to validate the identities of the IoT devices. The schema first identifies the devices in the IoT environment before the devices are actually integrated in the real network. In order to perform the authentication in the IoT environment before integrating with the network the authors have proposed for decreased communication overhead. The schema is based on the. Constrained Application Protocol or CoAP. The authentication is performed using the 128-bit Advanced Encryption Standard or AES. The authors suggest claims that due to such high level of encryption value the devices are highly secured in the IoT environment where the security playsa major role for successful implementation of the technology. In the CoAP technique, the identity of the server and the client is first is verified. Based on the identity the system then allows the client to access the server b ased on the conditions that was determined by the protocol in the request made by the client. Thus it is not easy for the user to access the server without performing proper authentication and the verification of the request is also necessary to get access to the server. Hofheinz Jager (2016) have proposed for public key algorithm for the authentication purpose. Data that is collected by the IoT devices is stored in the cloud servers and secured database. However it is important to note that in order to protect the data it is very much important to protect the authenticity and the integrity of the data. The integrity of the data can be maintained by the mechanism called message digest which is a secured hash algorithm. The algorithm produces predefined hash value to secure the digital content. It is not easy to access a digital content and modify it without the proper authentication if the content is secured with a predefined hash value. The authenticity of the data can be maintained by the public key based key based digital signature technique. In the public key based cryptography algorithm two keys are generated known as public and private key. The private key belongs to the owner of the data which needs to be used to prove the claim of the user t hat the user really owns the data. The public key is for the use of other users who wants to access the content. The public key is accessible to anyone who wants to verify the signature of a digital content or data. Stallings (2016) has proposed for hashing algorithm for digital content cryptography. The signature for the data is produced by hashing the digital content and a hash value is produced in this process. The value is attached to the content as the form of digital signature. In order to the read the content the digital content needs to be hashed again and in the second step the hashed value which is reconstructed in the hashing of the content has to matched with the public key along with the signature that is attached with the content. Su, Wong, Chen (2016, May) have proposed for a group authentication technique. The technique is based on the Threshold Cryptography. The scheme is used for the authenticate devices in a group. The authors describe that in the IoT environment lot of devices are connected together. Hence the task of securing those devices is a challenging option. However with the use of the group authentication technique it is possible to authenticate devices in a group. The authors have used the method of releasing the token to perform the authentication. The method is based on the Shamirs secret sharing scheme. The algorithm is implemented in the Wi-Fi environment. Each group in the network constitutes a set of devices and the devices communicate with each other by sharing secret key. There may be any number of groups and the range of the connectivity is decided based on the Wi-Fi standard. The groups can even overlap with each other and one device may belong to more than one group. However there is a primary device in every group which is responsible for monitoring the communication in the group. Each time a new device is added to the group, a new key pairs is generated which is distributed by the primary device within the group to keep the existing devices in the group updated about the inclusion of the new devices in the group. The TCGA algorithm constitutes of five key modules 1. Distribution of key. 2. Updating of key. 3. Generation Group Credits. 4. Authentication of Listener. 5. Message Decryption Moosavi et al., (2015) have proposed for SEA architecture for IoT based healthcare system. The architecture consist of smart health gate-ways. The health related information is captured from the sensors that are either body-worn or implanted. The sensors collect data of the patient and send it to the database for monitoring purpose. The architecture consists of medical sensor network, smart heath gateway and back end system. The medical sensor networks helps in sensing, identifying and communicating the medical related data. Sensors are attached with the patient. The sensors are highly advanced and help to collect necessary information about the patient condition. The sensors measure body temperature and collect data about the bio-medical and context signal. This data are useful to monitor the condition of the patient. The sensors can also supplement the data with the context information like date, time and location which helps toget precise information about the medical condition of the patient. The bio medical and the context signal that is captured by the sensors are transmitted to the gateway. The data is sent to the gateway with the help of wired and wireless communication protocol. the communication protocols include standard communication standards like serial , SPI , Bluetooth technology. Signal can also be sent using the Wi-Fi or IEEE 802.15.4 wireless communication standard. Rahman et al., (2015, January) have proposed for smart health gateway. Smart health gateway which supports the communication protocol serves as a connecting point between the MSN and the local switch or network. Data generated from different sub -networks are received by this gateway. The protocol conversion is also performed by the gateway. The gateway also aggregates the collected data and is also capable in data filtering. The gate way even provides some higher level service like dimensionality reduction of the collected data. The back end system constitutes the remaining part of the architecture. It includes a cloud platform where the data is stored for processing. The system also includes data warehouse and big data analytic servers where data are analyzed to extract the meaningful information from the collected data that helps to find the relevant information about the patient. The back end system also consists of local data base of the hospital where the data is stored tempora rily before it is sent to the cloud server and big data analytics server. The system also consists of web clients which provides the interface for the data visualization and data apprehensions. Porambage et al., (2014) have proposed for two phase authentication protocol to authenticate and secure the IoT devices. According to the authors the protocol is highly efficient for authentication purpose. In the wireless sensors networks that follows centralised architecture consists of a central entity. the sensor nodes in the network collects information from the sensors and send it to the central entity that is responsible tom maintain the centralised network, the fadta is themn proceesed by the central entity and the information is provided over the network. However IOT follows distributed network architecture. There is no central unit that collects and process the information. The mechanism is completely different from the centralised network. Here the sensor nodes are responsible for sensing the data. The data is then processed by the sensor nodes itself and then the information is exchanged with other nodes in the network. However there are certain security concern that need s to be addressed while following such distributive network architecture. There are serious threats of the devices to be hacked and once a node is hacked it is possible to exploit other nodes in the network as well. once the nodes are hacked it is possible to obtain sensitive information from the nodes and based on the field of application the sensitivity of the data varies. When implementing IoT in the context of healthcare it is much more important to secure the information with proper authentication technique. The authors have proposed two phase authentication technique. In this proposed technique the authors describes the mechanism to authenticate the sensor nodes and the devices that are used for end to end communication. In the first phase the nodes generates a authentication key to be used by the communicating devices. In the next phase the communicating devices will generate another key. The key will then be verified by the communicating node and if matches only then the com munication will takes place. The mechanism, as per the authors will enhance the security of the devices and also help to authenticate the devices more securely. Lee, Alasaarela Lee (2014, February) have suggested for a authentication scheme for securing the IoT servers. The scheme is based on Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) based algorithms. The authentication protocol proposed by the authors is applicable for the embedded devices that follow the HTTP protocol. The protocol makes use of the cookies generated by the HTTP protocol for authenticate the devices. The devices need the TCP/IP configuration to be connected with the protocol. The embedded devices are often limited in size and processing power. That is why the algorithm designed for the embedded system has to be efficient and it has to address the constraint that the embedded devices bring in the IoT environment. The architecture that has been proposed by the authors uses HTTP cookies which, according to the author have been optimized so that it fit in the constrained environment of embedded devices. The protocol consists of three phases namely Registration phase, Pre-computed and login phase and authentication phase. In the registration phase the devices register with the cloud servers and upon successful registration the server send back a cookie which is stored by the device. In the next phase or the Pre-computed and login phase, the device has to send a login request to login. Once the login request is accepted the device enters into authentication phase. In the authentication phase the device needs to send the cookie provided by the server during the registration phase. The server then checks if the cookie matches with the cookie provided by the server during the registration phase. The device is authenticated only if the cookies matches, otherwise error message are generated by the server. The authors claim that the mechanism is quite useful and advanced in managing authentication related issues. Solutions Based on the literature review the project finds out the following requirements: Review of the authentication issues in the IoT enabled healthcare system Design of proper authentication algorithm Review of the algorithm Comparison of the algorithms proposed by previous works Suggest the most appropriate algorithm based on the assessment of the strength and weakness of other proposed techniques by previous researchers. Future Research One of the major challenges that make the IOT environment venerable to security threats is the lack of proper security measure for the device authentication. There are lot of security issues in the IOT environment. However the prevent resource exhausting is the most concerning fact that the developers must address in order to maintain the device security intact in the IOT environment. In order to propose the effective security algorithm for the IOT devices the resource constrains must be taken care of. IOT devices are often resources limited. The devices have very limited resources in terms of processing power and storage memory. Hence the algorithm must be optimized in such a way it supports the limited processing power and storage of the IOT devices. The mechanism that has been proposed in the report has been optimized according to the resources available. The mechanism is based on the Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) [31] and Elliptic Curve Cryptography [32]. The application protocol or is designed in accordance with the IETF working group. It provides overview about the Constrained Restful Environment (CoRE). The knowledge about the CoRE helps to define the implementation architecture that is suitable for the the sensor nodes implemented in the highly constrained environment like IOT. The CoAP protocol is highly efficient to create communication between these constrained nodes. The protocol defines the web interfaces that help to make communication between the nodes to make device communication over the connected network. In the figure 1, different protocol stack has been shown. These protocols are commonly used in the IOT environment. In order to understand the effectiveness of the CoAP protocol for the IOT environment, it is important to have in-depth knowledge about the most widely used protocol that has almost made dominance on the internet communication technology. It is known as The Hypertext Transfer Protocol or HTTP. In order to understand the reason why the HTTP protocol is not chosen for the IOT implementation, despite it being so popular and widely used for the internet communication, the drawbacks of the protocol must be clearly defined and also needs to be carefully analyzed. HTTP is basically a structured text that finds the logical link or the hyper link between the nodes that contains the text. This links are used by the protocol to facilitate communication between the nodes. With the introduction of the Internet of the things or IOT, the definition of the internet has been completely redefined. The internet is not all about the human interaction anymore. With the IOT, machines and the devices are g etting connected to the internet in a rapid rate. With the context of the internet getting redefined, the requirements for the communication are also changing. The IOT communication has some special needs which the HTTP protocol is not efficient to address. In IOT communication, the information generated by one node needs to mapped to all the nodes that participates in the communication. small packets of information must be shared in high volume due to vast amount of data generated by the devices or the communication nodes. HTTP protocol is not efficient in addressing these requirements of IOT communication. the important feature that makes the CoAP appropriate for the IOT communication is that it allow machine to take the roles of both client and server and also allows to switch between these roles whenever it is necessary. It also supports asynchronous message transfer over the protocol which follows datagram orientation. One popular example of such protocol is the UDP protocol. A n optional request or response layer is also included with the CoAP messaging for providing connection that is reliable like the Transmission control protocol or TCP. The CoAp layer has been shown in the figure 2.The operational layer is useful for the dealing with the UDP protocol as well as dealing with the asynchronous interactions between the communicating needs. A 4 byte header file is generated for minimizing the traffic due to traffic overhead. CoAP includes methods like GET, POST, PUT and DELETE which provides codes for the device to response to the communication request. The code is also necessary for reflecting the execution status for the client request. CoAP provides four different types of messages: CON Message: It means Confirmable request. When a CON message is sent by a source node, then it is the responsibility of the recipient to send the response message using the ACK or the Acknowledge message. The message is of high importance and must be treated with importance . NON Message: It refers to the message that is Non-Confirmable. Whenever a NON request is sent by the sending node, the is no need for the recipient to respond to the message. The message is not of much importance ACK Message: It refers to Acknowledgement messages. Once the sending node sends the CON message, it should be acknowledged by the recipient. However it is not sufficient to acknowledge the message by the recipient the sending node must be made aware of the fact that the recipient has received the message and it should be forwarded to the sending node. The recipient must sent the ACK message to the response of the CON message. The ACK message may also contain information about the details about the message processing. RST Message: It refers to the RESET message. Now it might be possible that during the communication there occur errors due to reason like network traffic, internet speed. Now in order to make the communicating node aware of this, the recipient of the message must send RST message. It will help the sending node to understand that error has been occurred in the communication process. in case the recipient does not make the sending node of this communication error, it will continuously send message to the recipient, it will not only increase traffic over the network, a lot of data packet will remain on the network without processing which will affect the communication between other communicating nodes connected to the same network. The RST message will help the sending node to understand that the recipient is not able to understand the message or the recipient is no longer interested in receiving the message which will help to avoid network traffic due to sharing of message without any particular pu rpose. In order to achieve security restrictions of similar level, ECC considers key of smaller sizes. Although there are several other asymmetric cryptographic keys, but the security level provided by the ECC algorithm is much better and improved. Those features provided by the other algorithms considers larger key sizes, for instance a 256-bit symmetric key must be secluded by at least 15,000-bit RSA, on the other hand, ECC uses an asymmetric key size of only 512 bits to ensure equivalent security level. This decrease in the key size makes it possible for significant cost saving and more compacted design execution. Chips that are smaller are able to run cryptographic process in a much faster rate. It also minimizes the power consumption thus increase the efficiency .these features are especially appropriate for environments where there are resource constrain issues. A comparison of key size with equivalent security levels between ECC and RSA has been provided in the subsequent section. Key size ( ECC) Key size ( RSA) Reduction ratio (approximate) 162 1024 1:16 256 3074 1:12 383 7684 1:20 512 15365 1:30 The authentication mechanism proposed here will help to implement ECC authentication mechanism over CoAP connection. These two approaches when combined will help to optimize overhead to the IOT network. It will further help in minimizing the communication as well as the pocessing power that is required to make authentication of the IoT devices. It is also effective in achieving powerful and efficient security for the IoT devices. Authentication mechanism can be passing through multiple stages. Stage1: It is the initialization phase. Here the Control system generates a private key that is used for communication with the ECC. Stage2: It is the device registration phase. It includes the pre authentication process over CoAP where IoT devices are checked if it is already authenticated or not. Control station will then checks the device ID that will help to find out whether there is a corresponding entry for it. If there is no entry of device then an ID will be generated with the help of control private key. Along with it an encrypted password will be generated which will be stored back in the IoT device. Stage3: Mutual authentication stage, IoT device use this password to generate authentication key and send it back to the control system when it is try to connect it. Control system check these key using corresponding IoT entries stored at the control system. Stage4: All traffic pass between IoT devices and control station then will be encrypted and secured against different types of attack. Figure 5 proposed authentication mechanism shows the detailed steps of proposed authentication method between IoT device and control station. Advantages/ Disadvantages (5 marks) Constrained Application Protocol can be referred to as the web transfer protocol that is specially designed in order to make it compatible with constrained devices as well as constrained networks CoAP are specially appropriate for designing protocol that implements a request/response based interaction that is implemented for communication between the endpoints of communicating nodes or the networks CoAP contains some key concepts of the Web including URIs and Internet media types CoAP happens to be very common and at the same highly reliable. It is an effective choice for the application of data transferring, especially for the IoT environment. Elliptic Curve Cryptography refers to asymmetric cryptographic algorithm. It is applied for providing security and that too with the same level as provided by RSA. However the special feature of ECC is the key size as it works with much smaller key sizes. ECC works with much smaller key sizes while providing security of higher level . Due to smaller devices and lower processing power the IOT environment is highly constrained. However ECC works finely with the constraint environment of IOT ECC has the ability to provide encryption that is highly reliable. It also helps to minimize the overhead of the IOT network. Conclusion In this paper, a thorough review has been conducted on the use of IoT in healthcare. Security issues are highly critical when dealing with the healthcare system. In order to overcome the issues authentication mechanism has been proposed. The mechanism is highly reliable. While proposing the mechanism it had been made sure that the mechanism is compatible with the IOT devices. The IOT devices have limited memory and also have limitation in terms of processing power. 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