Edge-assisted post-quantum authentication protocol for IoMT: a privacy-preserving and lightweight approach

Area of Science:

• Cybersecurity
• Cryptography
• Healthcare Technology

Background:

• The Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) offers transformative healthcare delivery but faces significant security vulnerabilities, particularly from quantum computing.
• Existing security measures are insufficient against advanced threats, necessitating novel cryptographic approaches.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a lightweight, privacy-preserving authentication scheme for edge-based IoMT environments.
• To enhance security resilience against quantum attacks using NIST-standardized post-quantum primitives.
• To ensure secure session key establishment, message integrity, authentication, and non-repudiation.

Main Methods:

• Integration of CRYSTALS-Kyber Key Encapsulation Mechanism (KEM) for secure key establishment.
• Utilization of CRYSTALS-Dilithium for digital signatures to ensure message integrity and authentication.
• Formal security verification using the AVISPA tool under the Dolev-Yao model and BAN logic.
• Implementation of a two-phase process: Registration and Authentication involving patients, devices with PUFs, specialists, edge nodes, and cloud servers.

Main Results:

• The proposed scheme provides mutual authentication among all participating entities, ensuring secure access to sensitive health information.
• Formal verification confirmed that all security goals (authenticity, secrecy) are achieved, with no attacks detected.
• Performance evaluations demonstrated computational efficiency, making the scheme suitable for resource-constrained IoMT devices.

Conclusions:

• The developed authentication framework effectively addresses the security challenges posed by quantum computing in IoMT environments.
• The integration of post-quantum cryptography enhances the cryptographic robustness of edge-based IoMT systems.
• The scheme aligns with the goal of securing Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystems with advanced cryptosystems.