Software authentication to enhance trust in body sensor networks

This paper studies an approach to enhance the trust in the widespread use of Body Sensor Networks (BSN) in Healthcare. To address the wide variety in medical indications and differences between patients, we assume that such BSNs are programmable and highly flexible in their functionality. Yet this opens a vulnerability to malicious attacks and intrusion of the patient’s privacy. We study the work flow in a typical medical scenario, we map the (implied or evidence-based) trust relations and we use this to propose a scheme for verifying the authenticity and trustworthiness without prohibitively interfering with common practices. Our proposed framework is currently being refined in the VITRUVIUS project, for instance to test the feasibility of its implementation