Secure Healthcare Applications Data Storage in Cloud Using Signal Scrambling Method

A body sensor network that consists of wearable and/or implantable biosensors has been an important front-end for collecting personal health records. It is expected that the full integration of outside-hospital personal health information and hospital electronic health records will further promote preventative health services as well as global health. However, the integration and sharing of health information is bound to bring with it security and privacy issues. With extensive development of healthcare applications, security and privacy issues are becoming increasingly important. This paper addresses the potential security risks of healthcare data in Internet based applications, and proposes a method of signal scrambling as an add-on security mechanism in the application layer for a variety of healthcare information, where a piece of tiny data is used to scramble healthcare records. The former is kept locally whereas the latter, along with security protection, is sent for cloud storage. The tiny data can be derived from a random number generator or even a piece of healthcare data, which makes the method more flexible. The computational complexity and security performance in terms of theoretical and experimental analysis has been investigated to demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed method. The proposed method is applicable to all kinds of data that require extra security protection within complex networks

Security Limitations with Cloud Computing: Well-defined Security Measures Using Cloud Computing

Due to the ever-growing threat of security breaches that information technology (IT) organizations continually face, protecting customer information stored in the cloud is critical to ensure data integrity. Research shows that new categories of data breaches frequently emerge; thus, security strategies that build trust in consumers and improve system performance are crucial. The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore and analyze the strategies used by database administrators (DBAs) to secure data in a private infrastructure as a service (IaaS) cloud environment. The participants comprised of six DBAs from two IT companies in Baltimore, Maryland, with experience and knowledge of security strategies to secure data in private IaaS clouds. The disruptive innovation theory was the foundational framework for this study. Data were collected using semistructured interviews and a review of seven organizational documents. A thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. Two key themes are addressed in this article: importance of well-defined security measures in cloud computing and limitations of existing security controls in cloud computing. The findings of well-defined security strategies may benefit DBAs and IT organizations by providing strategies that may prevent future data breaches. Well-defined security strategies may protect an individual’s data which, in turn, may promote individual well-being and build strong communities. Keywords: cloud computing, security strategies, data breaches DOI: 10.7176/JIEA/11-2-05 Publication date: June 30th 202

Protection of big data privacy

In recent years, big data have become a hot research topic. The increasing amount of big data also increases the chance of breaching the privacy of individuals. Since big data require high computational power and large storage, distributed systems are used. As multiple parties are involved in these systems, the risk of privacy violation is increased. There have been a number of privacy-preserving mechanisms developed for privacy protection at different stages (e.g., data generation, data storage, and data processing) of a big data life cycle. The goal of this paper is to provide a comprehensive overview of the privacy preservation mechanisms in big data and present the challenges for existing mechanisms. In particular, in this paper, we illustrate the infrastructure of big data and the state-of-the-art privacy-preserving mechanisms in each stage of the big data life cycle. Furthermore, we discuss the challenges and future research directions related to privacy preservation in big data

Design of a secure architecture for the exchange of biomedical information in m-Health scenarios

El paradigma de m-Salud (salud móvil) aboga por la integración masiva de las más avanzadas tecnologías de comunicación, red móvil y sensores en aplicaciones y sistemas de salud, para fomentar el despliegue de un nuevo modelo de atención clínica centrada en el usuario/paciente. Este modelo tiene por objetivos el empoderamiento de los usuarios en la gestión de su propia salud (p.ej. aumentando sus conocimientos, promocionando estilos de vida saludable y previniendo enfermedades), la prestación de una mejor tele-asistencia sanitaria en el hogar para ancianos y pacientes crónicos y una notable disminución del gasto de los Sistemas de Salud gracias a la reducción del número y la duración de las hospitalizaciones. No obstante, estas ventajas, atribuidas a las aplicaciones de m-Salud, suelen venir acompañadas del requisito de un alto grado de disponibilidad de la información biomédica de sus usuarios para garantizar una alta calidad de servicio, p.ej. fusionar varias señales de un usuario para obtener un diagnóstico más preciso. La consecuencia negativa de cumplir esta demanda es el aumento directo de las superficies potencialmente vulnerables a ataques, lo que sitúa a la seguridad (y a la privacidad) del modelo de m-Salud como factor crítico para su éxito. Como requisito no funcional de las aplicaciones de m-Salud, la seguridad ha recibido menos atención que otros requisitos técnicos que eran más urgentes en etapas de desarrollo previas, tales como la robustez, la eficiencia, la interoperabilidad o la usabilidad. Otro factor importante que ha contribuido a retrasar la implementación de políticas de seguridad sólidas es que garantizar un determinado nivel de seguridad implica unos costes que pueden ser muy relevantes en varias dimensiones, en especial en la económica (p.ej. sobrecostes por la inclusión de hardware extra para la autenticación de usuarios), en el rendimiento (p.ej. reducción de la eficiencia y de la interoperabilidad debido a la integración de elementos de seguridad) y en la usabilidad (p.ej. configuración más complicada de dispositivos y aplicaciones de salud debido a las nuevas opciones de seguridad). Por tanto, las soluciones de seguridad que persigan satisfacer a todos los actores del contexto de m-Salud (usuarios, pacientes, personal médico, personal técnico, legisladores, fabricantes de dispositivos y equipos, etc.) deben ser robustas y al mismo tiempo minimizar sus costes asociados. Esta Tesis detalla una propuesta de seguridad, compuesta por cuatro grandes bloques interconectados, para dotar de seguridad a las arquitecturas de m-Salud con unos costes reducidos. El primer bloque define un esquema global que proporciona unos niveles de seguridad e interoperabilidad acordes con las características de las distintas aplicaciones de m-Salud. Este esquema está compuesto por tres capas diferenciadas, diseñadas a la medidas de los dominios de m-Salud y de sus restricciones, incluyendo medidas de seguridad adecuadas para la defensa contra las amenazas asociadas a sus aplicaciones de m-Salud. El segundo bloque establece la extensión de seguridad de aquellos protocolos estándar que permiten la adquisición, el intercambio y/o la administración de información biomédica -- por tanto, usados por muchas aplicaciones de m-Salud -- pero no reúnen los niveles de seguridad detallados en el esquema previo. Estas extensiones se concretan para los estándares biomédicos ISO/IEEE 11073 PHD y SCP-ECG. El tercer bloque propone nuevas formas de fortalecer la seguridad de los tests biomédicos, que constituyen el elemento esencial de muchas aplicaciones de m-Salud de carácter clínico, mediante codificaciones novedosas. Finalmente el cuarto bloque, que se sitúa en paralelo a los anteriores, selecciona herramientas genéricas de seguridad (elementos de autenticación y criptográficos) cuya integración en los otros bloques resulta idónea, y desarrolla nuevas herramientas de seguridad, basadas en señal -- embedding y keytagging --, para reforzar la protección de los test biomédicos.The paradigm of m-Health (mobile health) advocates for the massive integration of advanced mobile communications, network and sensor technologies in healthcare applications and systems to foster the deployment of a new, user/patient-centered healthcare model enabling the empowerment of users in the management of their health (e.g. by increasing their health literacy, promoting healthy lifestyles and the prevention of diseases), a better home-based healthcare delivery for elderly and chronic patients and important savings for healthcare systems due to the reduction of hospitalizations in number and duration. It is a fact that many m-Health applications demand high availability of biomedical information from their users (for further accurate analysis, e.g. by fusion of various signals) to guarantee high quality of service, which on the other hand entails increasing the potential surfaces for attacks. Therefore, it is not surprising that security (and privacy) is commonly included among the most important barriers for the success of m-Health. As a non-functional requirement for m-Health applications, security has received less attention than other technical issues that were more pressing at earlier development stages, such as reliability, eficiency, interoperability or usability. Another fact that has contributed to delaying the enforcement of robust security policies is that guaranteeing a certain security level implies costs that can be very relevant and that span along diferent dimensions. These include budgeting (e.g. the demand of extra hardware for user authentication), performance (e.g. lower eficiency and interoperability due to the addition of security elements) and usability (e.g. cumbersome configuration of devices and applications due to security options). Therefore, security solutions that aim to satisfy all the stakeholders in the m-Health context (users/patients, medical staff, technical staff, systems and devices manufacturers, regulators, etc.) shall be robust and, at the same time, minimize their associated costs. This Thesis details a proposal, composed of four interrelated blocks, to integrate appropriate levels of security in m-Health architectures in a cost-efcient manner. The first block designes a global scheme that provides different security and interoperability levels accordingto how critical are the m-Health applications to be implemented. This consists ofthree layers tailored to the m-Health domains and their constraints, whose security countermeasures defend against the threats of their associated m-Health applications. Next, the second block addresses the security extension of those standard protocols that enable the acquisition, exchange and/or management of biomedical information | thus, used by many m-Health applications | but do not meet the security levels described in the former scheme. These extensions are materialized for the biomedical standards ISO/IEEE 11073 PHD and SCP-ECG. Then, the third block proposes new ways of enhancing the security of biomedical standards, which are the centerpiece of many clinical m-Health applications, by means of novel codings. Finally the fourth block, with is parallel to the others, selects generic security methods (for user authentication and cryptographic protection) whose integration in the other blocks results optimal, and also develops novel signal-based methods (embedding and keytagging) for strengthening the security of biomedical tests. The layer-based extensions of the standards ISO/IEEE 11073 PHD and SCP-ECG can be considered as robust, cost-eficient and respectful with their original features and contents. The former adds no attributes to its data information model, four new frames to the service model |and extends four with new sub-frames|, and only one new sub-state to the communication model. Furthermore, a lightweight architecture consisting of a personal health device mounting a 9 MHz processor and an aggregator mounting a 1 GHz processor is enough to transmit a 3-lead electrocardiogram in real-time implementing the top security layer. The extra requirements associated to this extension are an initial configuration of the health device and the aggregator, tokens for identification/authentication of users if these devices are to be shared and the implementation of certain IHE profiles in the aggregator to enable the integration of measurements in healthcare systems. As regards to the extension of SCP-ECG, it only adds a new section with selected security elements and syntax in order to protect the rest of file contents and provide proper role-based access control. The overhead introduced in the protected SCP-ECG is typically 2{13 % of the regular file size, and the extra delays to protect a newly generated SCP-ECG file and to access it for interpretation are respectively a 2{10 % and a 5 % of the regular delays. As regards to the signal-based security techniques developed, the embedding method is the basis for the proposal of a generic coding for tests composed of biomedical signals, periodic measurements and contextual information. This has been adjusted and evaluated with electrocardiogram and electroencephalogram-based tests, proving the objective clinical quality of the coded tests, the capacity of the coding-access system to operate in real-time (overall delays of 2 s for electrocardiograms and 3.3 s for electroencephalograms) and its high usability. Despite of the embedding of security and metadata to enable m-Health services, the compression ratios obtained by this coding range from ' 3 in real-time transmission to ' 5 in offline operation. Complementarily, keytagging permits associating information to images (and other signals) by means of keys in a secure and non-distorting fashion, which has been availed to implement security measures such as image authentication, integrity control and location of tampered areas, private captioning with role-based access control, traceability and copyright protection. The tests conducted indicate a remarkable robustness-capacity tradeoff that permits implementing all this measures simultaneously, and the compatibility of keytagging with JPEG2000 compression, maintaining this tradeoff while setting the overall keytagging delay in only ' 120 ms for any image size | evidencing the scalability of this technique. As a general conclusion, it has been demonstrated and illustrated with examples that there are various, complementary and structured manners to contribute in the implementation of suitable security levels for m-Health architectures with a moderate cost in budget, performance, interoperability and usability. The m-Health landscape is evolving permanently along all their dimensions, and this Thesis aims to do so with its security. Furthermore, the lessons learned herein may offer further guidance for the elaboration of more comprehensive and updated security schemes, for the extension of other biomedical standards featuring low emphasis on security or privacy, and for the improvement of the state of the art regarding signal-based protection methods and applications

Multimedia security and privacy protection in the internet of things: research developments and challenges

With the rapid growth of the internet of things (IoT), huge amounts of multimedia data are being generated from and/or exchanged through various IoT devices, systems and applications. The security and privacy of multimedia data have, however, emerged as key challenges that have the potential to impact the successful deployment of IoT devices in some data-sensitive applications. In this paper, we conduct a comprehensive survey on multimedia data security and privacy protection in the IoT. First, we classify multimedia data into different types and security levels according to application areas. Then, we analyse and discuss the existing multimedia data protection schemes in the IoT, including traditional techniques (e.g., cryptography and watermarking) and emerging technologies (e.g., blockchain and federated learning). Based on the detailed analysis on the research development of IoT-related multimedia security and privacy protection, we point out some open challenges and provide future research directions, aiming to advance the study in the relevant fields and assist researchers in gaining a deeper understanding of the state of the art on multimedia data protection in the IoT

Secure steganography, compression and diagnoses of electrocardiograms in wireless body sensor networks

Submission of this completed form results in your thesis/project being lodged online at the RMIT Research Repository. Further information about the RMIT Research Repository is available at http://researchbank.rmit.edu.au Please complete abstract and keywords below for cataloguing and indexing your thesis/project. Abstract (Minimum 200 words, maximum 500 words) The usage of e-health applications is increasing in the modern era. Remote cardiac patients monitoring application is an important example of these e-health applications. Diagnosing cardiac disease in time is of crucial importance to save many patients lives. More than 3.5 million Australians suffer from long-term cardiac diseases. Therefore, in an ideal situation, a continuous cardiac monitoring system should be provided for this large number of patients. However, health-care providers lack the technology required to achieve this objective. Cloud services can be utilized to fill the technology gap for health-care providers. However, three main problems prevent health-care providers from using cloud services. Privacy, performance and accuracy of diagnoses. In this thesis we are addressing these three problems. To provide strong privacy protection services, two steganography techniques are proposed. Both techniques could achieve promising results in terms of security and distortion measurement. The differences between original and resultant watermarked ECG signals were less then 1%. Accordingly, the resultant ECG signal can be still used for diagnoses purposes, and only authorized persons who have the required security information, can extract the hidden secret data in the ECG signal. Consequently, to solve the performance problem of storing huge amount of data concerning ECG into the cloud, two types of compression techniques are introduced: Fractal based lossy compression technique and Gaussian based lossless compression technique. This thesis proves that, fractal models can be efficiently used in ECG lossy compression. Moreover, the proposed fractal technique is a multi-processing ready technique that is suitable to be implemented inside a cloud to make use of its multi processing capability. A high compression ratio could be achieved with low distortion effects. The Gaussian lossless compression technique is proposed to provide a high compression ratio. Moreover, because the compressed files are stored in the cloud, its services should be able to provide automatic diagnosis capability. Therefore, cloud services should be able to diagnose compressed ECG files without undergoing a decompression stage to reduce additional processing overhead. Accordingly, the proposed Gaussian compression provides the ability to diagnose the resultant compressed file. Subsequently, to make use of this homomorphic feature of the proposed Gaussian compression algorithm, in this thesis we have introduced a new diagnoses technique that can be used to detect life-threatening cardiac diseases such as Ventricular Tachycardia and Ventricular Fibrillation. The proposed technique is applied directly to the compressed ECG files without going through the decompression stage. The proposed technique could achieve high accuracy results near to 100% for detecting Ventricular Arrhythmia and 96% for detecting Left Bundle Branch Block. Finally, we believe that in this thesis, the first steps towards encouraging health-care providers to use cloud services have been taken. However, this journey is still long

Robust zero watermarking algorithm for medical images based on Zernike-DCT

Digital medical system not only facilitates the storage and transmission of medical information but also brings information security problems. Aiming at the security of medical images, a robust zero watermarking algorithm for medical images based on Zernike-DCT is proposed. *e algorithm first uses a chaotic logic sequence to preprocess and encrypt the watermark, then performs edge detection and Zernike moment processing on the original medical image to get the accurate edge points, and then performs discrete cosine transform (DCT) on them to get the feature vector. Finally, it combines perceptual Hash and zero watermark technology to generate the key to complete the watermark embedding and extraction. *e algorithm has good robustness to conventional and geometric attacks, strong antinoise ability, high positioning accuracy, and processing efficiency and is superior to the classical edge detection algorithm in extraction effect. It is a stable and reliable image edge detection algorithm

Security Strategies to Prevent Data Breaches in Infrastructure as a Service Cloud Computing

Due to the ever-growing threat of security breaches that information technology (IT) organizations continually face, protecting customer information stored within the cloud is critical to ensuring data integrity. Research shows that new categories of data breaches constantly emerge; thus, security strategies that build trust in consumers and improve system performance are a must. The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore and analyze the strategies used by database administrators (DBAs) to secure data in a private infrastructure as a service (IaaS) cloud computing. The participants comprised of 6 DBAs from 2 IT companies in Baltimore, Maryland, with experience and knowledge of security strategies to secure data in private IaaS cloud computing. The disruptive innovation theory was the conceptual framework for this study. Data were collected using semistructured interviews and a review of 7 organizational documents. A thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. Four key themes emerged: importance of well-defined security measures in cloud computing, measures to address security controls in cloud computing, limitations of existing security controls in cloud computing, and future and potential security measures solutions in cloud computing. The findings may benefit DBAs and IT organizations by providing strategies to prevent future data breaches. Well-defined security strategies may protect an individual’s data, which in turn may promote individual well-being and build strong communities

Security and trust in cloud computing and IoT through applying obfuscation, diversification, and trusted computing technologies

Cloud computing and Internet of Things (IoT) are very widely spread and commonly used technologies nowadays. The advanced services offered by cloud computing have made it a highly demanded technology. Enterprises and businesses are more and more relying on the cloud to deliver services to their customers. The prevalent use of cloud means that more data is stored outside the organization’s premises, which raises concerns about the security and privacy of the stored and processed data. This highlights the significance of effective security practices to secure the cloud infrastructure. The number of IoT devices is growing rapidly and the technology is being employed in a wide range of sectors including smart healthcare, industry automation, and smart environments. These devices collect and exchange a great deal of information, some of which may contain critical and personal data of the users of the device. Hence, it is highly significant to protect the collected and shared data over the network; notwithstanding, the studies signify that attacks on these devices are increasing, while a high percentage of IoT devices lack proper security measures to protect the devices, the data, and the privacy of the users. In this dissertation, we study the security of cloud computing and IoT and propose software-based security approaches supported by the hardware-based technologies to provide robust measures for enhancing the security of these environments. To achieve this goal, we use obfuscation and diversification as the potential software security techniques. Code obfuscation protects the software from malicious reverse engineering and diversification mitigates the risk of large-scale exploits. We study trusted computing and Trusted Execution Environments (TEE) as the hardware-based security solutions. Trusted Platform Module (TPM) provides security and trust through a hardware root of trust, and assures the integrity of a platform. We also study Intel SGX which is a TEE solution that guarantees the integrity and confidentiality of the code and data loaded onto its protected container, enclave. More precisely, through obfuscation and diversification of the operating systems and APIs of the IoT devices, we secure them at the application level, and by obfuscation and diversification of the communication protocols, we protect the communication of data between them at the network level. For securing the cloud computing, we employ obfuscation and diversification techniques for securing the cloud computing software at the client-side. For an enhanced level of security, we employ hardware-based security solutions, TPM and SGX. These solutions, in addition to security, ensure layered trust in various layers from hardware to the application. As the result of this PhD research, this dissertation addresses a number of security risks targeting IoT and cloud computing through the delivered publications and presents a brief outlook on the future research directions.Pilvilaskenta ja esineiden internet ovat nykyään hyvin tavallisia ja laajasti sovellettuja tekniikkoja. Pilvilaskennan pitkälle kehittyneet palvelut ovat tehneet siitä hyvin kysytyn teknologian. Yritykset enenevässä määrin nojaavat pilviteknologiaan toteuttaessaan palveluita asiakkailleen. Vallitsevassa pilviteknologian soveltamistilanteessa yritykset ulkoistavat tietojensa käsittelyä yrityksen ulkopuolelle, minkä voidaan nähdä nostavan esiin huolia taltioitavan ja käsiteltävän tiedon turvallisuudesta ja yksityisyydestä. Tämä korostaa tehokkaiden turvallisuusratkaisujen merkitystä osana pilvi-infrastruktuurin turvaamista. Esineiden internet -laitteiden lukumäärä on nopeasti kasvanut. Teknologiana sitä sovelletaan laajasti monilla sektoreilla, kuten älykkäässä terveydenhuollossa, teollisuusautomaatiossa ja älytiloissa. Sellaiset laitteet keräävät ja välittävät suuria määriä informaatiota, joka voi sisältää laitteiden käyttäjien kannalta kriittistä ja yksityistä tietoa. Tästä syystä johtuen on erittäin merkityksellistä suojata verkon yli kerättävää ja jaettavaa tietoa. Monet tutkimukset osoittavat esineiden internet -laitteisiin kohdistuvien tietoturvahyökkäysten määrän olevan nousussa, ja samaan aikaan suuri osuus näistä laitteista ei omaa kunnollisia teknisiä ominaisuuksia itse laitteiden tai niiden käyttäjien yksityisen tiedon suojaamiseksi. Tässä väitöskirjassa tutkitaan pilvilaskennan sekä esineiden internetin tietoturvaa ja esitetään ohjelmistopohjaisia tietoturvalähestymistapoja turvautumalla osittain laitteistopohjaisiin teknologioihin. Esitetyt lähestymistavat tarjoavat vankkoja keinoja tietoturvallisuuden kohentamiseksi näissä konteksteissa. Tämän saavuttamiseksi työssä sovelletaan obfuskaatiota ja diversifiointia potentiaalisiana ohjelmistopohjaisina tietoturvatekniikkoina. Suoritettavan koodin obfuskointi suojaa pahantahtoiselta ohjelmiston takaisinmallinnukselta ja diversifiointi torjuu tietoturva-aukkojen laaja-alaisen hyödyntämisen riskiä. Väitöskirjatyössä tutkitaan luotettua laskentaa ja luotettavan laskennan suoritusalustoja laitteistopohjaisina tietoturvaratkaisuina. TPM (Trusted Platform Module) tarjoaa turvallisuutta ja luottamuksellisuutta rakentuen laitteistopohjaiseen luottamukseen. Pyrkimyksenä on taata suoritusalustan eheys. Työssä tutkitaan myös Intel SGX:ää yhtenä luotettavan suorituksen suoritusalustana, joka takaa suoritettavan koodin ja datan eheyden sekä luottamuksellisuuden pohjautuen suojatun säiliön, saarekkeen, tekniseen toteutukseen. Tarkemmin ilmaistuna työssä turvataan käyttöjärjestelmä- ja sovellusrajapintatasojen obfuskaation ja diversifioinnin kautta esineiden internet -laitteiden ohjelmistokerrosta. Soveltamalla samoja tekniikoita protokollakerrokseen, työssä suojataan laitteiden välistä tiedonvaihtoa verkkotasolla. Pilvilaskennan turvaamiseksi työssä sovelletaan obfuskaatio ja diversifiointitekniikoita asiakaspuolen ohjelmistoratkaisuihin. Vankemman tietoturvallisuuden saavuttamiseksi työssä hyödynnetään laitteistopohjaisia TPM- ja SGX-ratkaisuja. Tietoturvallisuuden lisäksi nämä ratkaisut tarjoavat monikerroksisen luottamuksen rakentuen laitteistotasolta ohjelmistokerrokseen asti. Tämän väitöskirjatutkimustyön tuloksena, osajulkaisuiden kautta, vastataan moniin esineiden internet -laitteisiin ja pilvilaskentaan kohdistuviin tietoturvauhkiin. Työssä esitetään myös näkemyksiä jatkotutkimusaiheista