Zero Knowledge based Authentication for Internet of Medical Things

Internet of Things (IoT) applications, such as e-healthcare departments have grown tremendously where devices gather patient data and instantly transmit it over a distance to servers. Despite its huge advantages, IoT in the healthcare sector has acquired little consideration, largely because of the threats of unauthorized access to private health data made possible by the weak wireless communication channel. The economic complexity of the current security protocols makes them inappropriate, hence new security protocols must be developed for resource-constrained and diverse IoT networks. This work suggests an authenticated key agreement protocol for the Internet of medical things (IoMT) that is based on zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP). The research will include the comparison between computational delays in traditional protocols and ZKP protocol. This paper provides a protocol to obtain privacy of data in IoMT environment on the basis of zero knowledge phenomenon and anonymous communication by ZKP.

I. Introduction

The IoT is a system of physically interconnected heterogeneous devices that are linked to one another and may communicate through wireless heterogeneous communication technologies [1]. In the last few years, healthcare applications is poised for a transformation through IoT. In the medical management industry, IoT is also known as the Internet of medical things (IoMT) or the Internet of healthcare things (IoHT) [2]. IoMT solves various shortcomings in conventional medical care, such as the distance between patients and physicians brought on by the inconvenience of patients’ schedules and geographic locations [3]. Smart sensors, actuators, and IoT devices assist in providing real-time information about patients and transferring the sensed information to distant devices with advanced communication technology such as 6G and the usage of different communication technologies [4], [5]. Medical professionals that are stationed far away can communicate with IoMT gadgets, which include smart watch, and mobile healthcare applications. Better outcomes and cheaper costs are being produced by the IoMT, which is having a significant impact on the healthcare industry. In the future, analysts forecast growth of IoMT up to 360 USD billion till 2031 in the Asia Pacific and European markets is illustrated in Fig. 1, as per the report [6]. Due to heterogeneous communication technology and openly shared channel usage, IoMT data is vulnerable. Besides that, due to a lack of infrastructure, heterogeneous computing devices, and security guidelines for IoMT, not only data security but authentication of devices is also a major issue [7], [8].