A privacy-preserving ECG-based authentication system for securing wireless body sensor networks

Abstract

Authentication plays an essential role in securing the communication between sensor nodes within a wireless body sensor network (WBSN). The electrocardiogram (ECG) as a type of physiological data collected by sensor nodes in WBSNs can provide intrinsic liveness detection and the ECG data are continuously available. These are highly desirable properties for authentication purposes. Although ECG-based intra-node authentication for WBSNs has been extensively studied, far less attention is paid to protecting the ECG data despite their sensitivity. In this paper, we propose a privacy-preserving ECG-based authentication system using a non-invertible transformation scheme called manipulatable Haar transform (MHT). The proposed authentication system not only provides secure intra-node authentication for WBSNs, but also protects the sensitive health and identity information contained in ECG data from being exposed to adversaries. Experiment results on two public databases and a real IoT device show the strong performance and efficiency of the proposed system. Moreover, security analysis demonstrates the validity of the MHT.

RAS ID

36966

Document Type

Journal Article

Date of Publication

2022

Funding Information

Cyber Security Research Centre Limited

School

ECU Security Research Institute / School of Science /

Copyright

subscription content

Publisher

IEEE

Comments

Yang, W., & Wang, S. (2022). A privacy-preserving ECG-based authentication system for securing wireless body sensor networks. IEEE Internet of Things Journal, 9(8), 6148-6158. https://doi.org/10.1109/JIOT.2021.3109609

Link to Full Text

Share

 
COinS
 

Link to publisher version (DOI)

10.1109/JIOT.2021.3109609