Blockchain-assisted authenticated key agreement scheme for IoT-based healthcare system

Abstract

IoT devices are widely used in smart hospitals, digital health, and automated pathology laboratories to generate a large amount of heterogeneous data. These devices, coupled with medical sensors, enable healthcare professionals to monitor patients’ health and medical device performance in real-time. The collected health data is transmitted to centralized cloud servers for analysis and diagnosis. However, the wireless communication channels used by these devices are vulnerable to security threats such as unauthorized access, denial-of-service attacks, and man-in-the-middle attacks. Existing solutions rely on a single trusted authority for computing and storage, which can lead to issues such as higher latency, centralization, and a single point of failure. To address these concerns, we propose a new protocol called Blockchain-based IoMT Authenticated Key Exchange (BIoMTAKE) that establishes a private/consortium blockchain-based distributed environment using Hyperledger Fabric. This protocol eliminates the need for a single trusted authority and ensures secure access to data generated by IoMT devices. Before sharing or accessing any data from the distributed healthcare system, the BIoMTAKE scheme establishes a secured shared session for authenticated devices to prevent unauthorized access. The proposed methodology has been subjected to formal security analysis using the Scyther tool and informal security analysis, which demonstrates its strong security. Additionally, our performance analysis using Hyperledger Fabric and cryptography libraries shows that the proposed scheme is computationally and communicatively efficient.