Hard and soft security provisioning for computationally weak pervasive computing systems in E-health

Abstract

We are witnessing increasing penetration of pervasive computing into business and personal environments. Its advances, among other things, enable new opportunities for better health services but, as a side effect, it introduces new threats to privacy. If anywhere, it is in the health care sector that privacy is of utmost importance. Knowing further that internet of things devices typically lack computing and energy resources, the need for providing appropriate privacy is a hard issue. This paper therefore addresses privacy for internet of things technologies by focusing on the most "primitive" members, bare sensors and RFIDs. Based on lessons learned in this domain, a strategy of incrementally adjusting existing protocols is adopted for deployment in the area of wireless medical sensors body area networks. By doing so, new contributions that are quantifiably lightweight and that enable privacy, together with confidential exchange of captured measured quantities, are provided. In addition to such hard security solutions, the paper addresses trust management methods as a complementary, soft mean for security provisioning. This latter contribution also paves the way for further development and for applications of pervasive computing in general.