Blockchain-Based Mutual Authentication Protocol with Privacy Protection in Telemedicine

Abstract

Telemedicine builds a patient-centered remote diagnosis and continuous monitoring service system, which can effectively alleviate the current situation of difficult and expensive medical treatment. This paper focuses on mutual authentication with privacy protection in telemedicine. First, we propose a decentralized multi-authority attribute-based signature scheme. The signature scheme can be used to verify the signer’s attributes without leaking the identity information, thereby achieving privacy protection while authenticating. Combined with the proposed signature scheme, a blockchain-based mutual authentication protocol with privacy protection in telemedicine is designed. By this protocol, patients and telemedicine terminal can encrypt and store the medical data off-chain, and store the data digest and decentralized attribute-based signature on the blockchain. As a result, the confidentiality of the data and the authenticity of the source can be guaranteed. In addition, the nature of the blockchain and signature ensure that accurate liability determination can be made when medical disputes occur. Theoretical analysis shows that our protocol is secure and practical.