IAMKeys: Independent and Adaptive Management of Keys for Security in Wireless Body Area Networks

Abstract

AbstractWireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) have gained a lot of research attention in recent years since they offer tremendous benefits for remote health monitoring and continuous, real-time patient care. However, as with any wireless communication, data security in WBANs is a challenging design issue. Since such networks consist of small sensors placed on the human body, they impose resource and computational restrictions, thereby making the use of sophisticated and advanced encryption algorithms infeasible. This calls for the design of algorithms with a robust key generation / management scheme, which are reasonably resource optimal. This paper presents IAMKeys, an independent and adaptive key management scheme for improving the security of WBANs. The novelty of this scheme lies in the use of a randomly generated key for encrypting each data frame that is generated independently at both the sender and the receiver, eliminating the need for any key exchange. The simplicity of the encryption scheme, combined with the adaptability in key management makes the scheme simple, yet secure. The proposed algorithm is validated by performance analysis.Keywordsbody area networksbody area network securitywireless network securitykey managementencryption