A novel key distribution of body area networks for telemedicine

Abstract

Biomedical sensors wirelessly located on/in the human body have drawn lots of attention for healthcare purposes. Due to stringent constraints of power, memory and computation capability, security mechanism in wireless body area biosensor networks should be quite different from generic sensor networks. This paper proposes a specific symmetric cryptosystem for those networks wherein physiological signals derived from the human body are utilized to ensure the security of key distribution without key exchange. Experimental data analysis shows that heart rate variability could be one of the proper physiological parameters that can be used to generate a good 'witness' to ensure the secure key distribution.