Two-Fold Security Model Using 2D-Vector Key Bunch and Privacy Preservation of the EHRs in the Distributed Network Involving Blockchain

Abstract

With the promising features of decentralization offered by distributed ledgers such as blockchain, they are exceedingly useful in storing the give-and-take particulars of contractual interactions. The distinct characteristics of immutability, high security, transparency, and tamperproof data present in the blockchain make the technology sought after for applications dealing with information exchange over public channels. The use of blockchain as a substitute for the database in applications has cut down the third-party interference while exchanging the contents of the database or appending the information in the database are made, thereby reaching a consensus in the trustless conditions. The operational inefficiencies are reduced to a large extent, thereby saving money. Among other potential use-cases, the healthcare industry is one of the foremost sectors, wherein the private and sensitive details of the persons undergoing medical treatments for their ailments are staged in the databases managed by healthcare agencies like hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, diagnostic centers, etc. The key role of managing and sharing of the patients’ details are with the primary agency where the data has originated. Patient records contain attributes which reveal the identity of the patient, medical condition, and social security and economic status. The fields of a hospital dataset, like the social security number, specific medical treatment details, past medical case-sheet, insurance agency and claims particulars, occupation, and financial status, are vulnerable to attacks and misuse. In this chapter, a permissioned blockchain-based technique is developed for preserving the privacy of the electronic healthcare data of the patients and giving access rights to the owner of the data—that is, the patient—to assign the privileges to the trustworthy entities in the network of the patient’s choice. The sensitive parameters of electronic health records (EHRs) are encrypted using the computationally fast and strong cipher involving the key bunch matrix. The cipher under discussion is also easily adaptable in the environments with low computing configurations. Unlike most of the classical block ciphers, which depend upon the length of the key size in binary bits, the blockchain-based privacy preservation system provides further flexibility of enhancing the key size with minimal additional computational cost. The inherent features of the blockchain-involved information exchange, additionally with the security and privacy preservation techniques, enable the application to be readily adapted to the public networks as well as public/open blockchains.