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

Emerging Informatics

The book on emerging informatics brings together the new concepts and applications that will help define and outline problem solving methods and features in designing business and human systems. It covers international aspects of information systems design in which many relevant technologies are introduced for the welfare of human and business systems. This initiative can be viewed as an emergent area of informatics that helps better conceptualise and design new world-class solutions. The book provides four flexible sections that accommodate total of fourteen chapters. The section specifies learning contexts in emerging fields. Each chapter presents a clear basis through the problem conception and its applicable technological solutions. I hope this will help further exploration of knowledge in the informatics discipline

Strategies for Improving Data Protection to Reduce Data Loss from Cyberattacks

Accidental and targeted data breaches threaten sustainable business practices and personal privacy, exposing all types of businesses to increased data loss and financial impacts. This single case study was conducted in a medium-sized enterprise located in Brevard County, Florida, to explore the successful data protection strategies employed by the information system and information technology business leaders. Actor-network theory was the conceptual framework for the study with a graphical syntax to model data protection strategies. Data were collected from semistructured interviews of 3 business leaders, archival documents, and field notes. Data were analyzed using thematic, analytic, and software analysis, and methodological triangulation. Three themes materialized from the data analyses: people--inferring security personnel, network engineers, system engineers, and qualified personnel to know how to monitor data; processes--inferring the activities required to protect data from data loss; and technology--inferring scientific knowledge used by people to protect data from data loss. The findings are indicative of successful application of data protection strategies and may be modeled to assess vulnerabilities from technical and nontechnical threats impacting risk and loss of sensitive data. The implications of this study for positive social change include the potential to alter attitudes toward data protection, creating a better environment for people to live and work; reduce recovery costs resulting from Internet crimes, improving social well-being; and enhance methods for the protection of sensitive, proprietary, and personally identifiable information, which advances the privacy rights for society

Success factors in information technology projects

Concern for project failures and successes have posed a controversial and much debated topic amongst scholars and practitioners alike. IT projects are no exceptions and they too suffer from a high rate of failure. This research aims to explore the reasons why certain IT projects succeed). Besides its academic importance, the research intends to assess the implications for successful implementation of current and future IT projects. The review of the extant literature reveals the enormity of the challenges involved in minimising or avoiding project failures. Present work is contextualizing these issues in a large national organisation with branches throughout the KSA. The Saudi Arabia constitutes the case study for this research. Qualitative methodology was adopted to generate and collect adequate and relevant data. Main instruments were; Semi-structured interviews involving senior managers in five geographical areas who were involved in the management of the IT projects and selected project documents. Thematic analysis was used and led to emergence of seven main ‘themes’, 19 major ‘issues’, and the construction of the first time generic model for success of IT projects. The core issues identified in the model are: Quality, Time and Cost at three levels; individual, organisation and environment with specific order of importance. The implications of the findings for the theory and practice have been identified. It is also recommended that there is a need for further research into individual and contextual factors that influence both managers as well as the circumstances under which IT projects are implemented.Ministry of Education, KS

Updated SPARTA SRIA (Roadmap v3): Roadmap for the SPARTA Cybersecurity Competence Network

This deliverable constitutes the SPARTA roadmap. It describes the SPARTA roadmap's mission statement of strengthening EU's digital autonomy via cybersecurity. To this end, a first step towards a prioritization of the existing program, transversal, and emerging cybersecurity challenges is provided with respect to their impact on digital sovereignty. The document outlines an open-source strategy, covering software as well as hardware, endorsed by SPARTA towards its mission. We also describe implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on cybersecurity and suggests recommendations to address them.This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 83089

ESIIG2

331 p. , Il, Tablas, Gráficos.Libro ElectrónicoESIIG2 - The Second European Summit on Interoperability in the iGovernment, represents an unprecedented occasion to develop new synergies and create contacts with representatives of the European Commission, of the national and regional governments of Europe, of the research field, the Academia and experts of the ICT sector. Mrs Viviane Reding, Member of the European Commission for Information Society and Media gave her official patronage to the Second European Summit of Interoperability in the iGovernment, ESIIG2. Event with the patronage CISIS (Italian Interregional Centre of Information and Statistic Systems) The European Commission initiative i2010, through the DG Information and Media Society offered its support to ESIIG2.ForewordXI ESIIG 3 What is ESIIG2? 3 Commissioner Reding message 4 ESIIG 2 Co - hosted events5 The Programme 6 ESIIG2 Supporters8 The Regional Ministry for consumer protection and administrative simplification13 The Technical and Scientific Committee15 Structure of the Technical and Scientific Committee15 What does the Committee do?15 Important and innovative initiatives of ESIIG 219 Publication of the Call for Papers Results23 T-Seniority: E-inclusion and Interoperability25 Alejandro Echeverria Security and Privacy Preserving Data in E-Government Integration31 Claudio Biancalana, Francesco Saverio Profiti Proposal for Interoperability Between Public Universities39 Correcher E, Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Spain A Cross-Application Reference Model to Support Interoperability 53 Elena Baralis, Tania Cerquitelli, Silvana Raffa Table of Contents VII Applying Soa to Mobile Secure eGovernment Services The Sweb Approach65 Silke Cuno, Yuri Glickman, Petra Hoepner, Linda Strick An Identity Metasystem Approach to Improve Eid Interoperability and Assure Privacy Compliance 74 Andrea Valboni Towards Interoperable Infrastructures of Geospatial Data 86 Sergio Farruggia, Emanuele Roccatagliata Modernization and Administrative Simplification Master Plan for the Local Councils of the Region of Murcia 101 Leandro Marín Muñoz, Pedro Olivares Sánchez, Isabel Belmonte Martínez Organizational Interoperability and Organizing for Interoperability in eGovernment109 Ralf Cimander, Herbert Kubicek The National Interoperability Framework: a New Regulatory Tool to Guarantee Interoperability Among Spanish Public Administrations 123 Agustí Cerrillo The Realization of the Greek E-Gif 131 Andreas Papadakis, Kostas Rantos, Antonis Stasis Build Government Interoperability Through Open Standard Technology 141 Goodwin Ting, Anne Rasanen, Marco Pappalardo Towards an Intercultural Representation of Mediterranean Intangible Cultural Heritage (Ich) An Xml Interoperability Framework for Regional Ich Databases 154 Jesse Marsh, Francesco Passantino Castile and Leon, a Model of Interoperability 168 Isabel Alonso Sánchez, José Ignacio de Uribe Ladrón de Cegama, Antonio Francisco Pérez Fernández, Jorge Ordás Alonso The Catalan Interoperability Model182 Ignasi Albors Identity and Residence Verification Data System189 Nimia Rodríguez Escolar, Jose A Eusamio Mazagatos From Extended Enterprise to Extended Government: Regione Lazio Interoperability and Egovernment Point of View 199 Claudio Biancalana, Dante Chiroli, Claudio Pisu, Francesco Saverio Profiti, Fabio Raimondi Contribution by the Members of the Technical and Scientific Committee 215 Interoperability and Egovernment Through Adoption of Standards 215 Flavia Marzano A Brief Compendium on Interoperability in Egovernment 224 Michele M Missikoff Table of Contents VIII Spc – The Italian Interoperabilty Framework with Services241 Francesco Tortorelli, Roberto Baldoni Exploitation of Digital Contents for the Public Administration 254 Giulio De Petra, Fabrizio Gianneschi, Giaime Ginesu Deploying the full transformational power of egovernment – collaboration and interoperability –270 Sylvia Archmann, Just Castillo Iglesias ICAR Report: Interoperability and Cooperation between applications among Italian Regions (English summary)278 CISIS - Central Staff of ICAR Project List of the finalists of the iG20 Award 297 IG20 AWARDS: Eucaris, the European car and driving licence information system297 INNOVATIVNESS: Interopcyl299 TRANSFERABILITY: Semic, Semantic Interoperability Center Europe301 IMPACT: Employment/unemployment status management: actual interoperability through the CO eService303 PRACTICAL RESULTS: Emilia Romagna Labour Information System 305 The ESIIG2 Summit results: the creation of ERNI and the Interoperability Declaration of Rome 309 The Interoperability Declaration of Rome 311 Follow the new and interesting developments of Esiig2 31