Secure data communication in WSHN using EXP-MD5 and DHSK-ECC.

Background: In the Healthcare (HC) sector, the usage of Wireless Sensor Healthcare Networks (WSHN) is attaining specific importance. The sensor device is implanted into the patient's body, and the sensed health information of patients is transformed via data aggregating devices like mobile devices, cameras, and so on, to the doctors. Thus, the early signs of diseases are identified, and remote monitoring of the patient's health is carried out by the physician on time. This aids in improving the health condition of the people and reduces the severity of disorders. But, the security gap in HC remains unresolved, despite various advantages.

Objective: This work proposes secured data communication in WSHN using Exponential Message Digest5 (EXP-MD5) and Diffie Hellman Secret Key-based Elliptic Curve Cryptography (DHSK-ECC) techniques.

Methods: Primarily, the patient registers their details in the Hospital Cloud Server (HCS). With hospital ID and patient ID, public and private keys are generated during registration. Afterward, by utilizing the Navie Shuffling (NS) technique, nCr combinations are created and shuffled. After shuffling, any of the randomly selected combinations are encoded utilizing the American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) code. For patient authentication, the ASCII code is further converted into a Quick Response(QR) code. Upon successful registration, the patient logs in to HCS. The patient can book for doctor's appointment if the login details are verified with those of the registered details. On consulting the doctor at the pre-informed time, the digital signature is created utilizing the Universal Unique Salt-based Digital Signature Algorithm (UUS-DSA) for authenticating the patient details. Further, for providing accessibility to all the authorized patients, the registered patients on HCS are considered as nodes. Then, an authorized path is created using the EXP-MD5 technique to protect each individual patient's details. The patient's IoT data is sensed, followed by authorized path creation. The data is encrypted via the DHSK-ECC algorithm for secure data transmission. Lastly, all the information is stored in HCS, so that the patient's health condition is regularly monitored by the doctor and the needy advice is suggested to the patients in the future. Also, hash matching is carried out when the doctor needs to access data.

Results: The proposed technique's efficacy is validated by the performance analysis in comparison with other conventional techniques.

Conclusion: In this proposed research, the authentication is performed in multiple scenarios to enhance data security and user privacy. The patient details are authenticated during registration and verification to access the online consultation only by the authorized person. Further, the patient health information is encrypted in the proposed work after consultation so that the intrusion of medical records by malicious users and data tampering is prevented. Also, the sensed data gathered from patients are transferred to the HCS by creating the authorized path, which further enhances the security of patient data. Thus, the data communication of the WSHN is well-secured in this work through multi-level authentication and improved cryptography techniques.