Balancing Security and Privacy with Data Usefulness and Efficiency in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) are a subcategory of WSNs that have been developed to support health care solutions such as blood pressure, heart rate, and endoscopic capsules. Such technologies have their benefits; however, they also present significant security and privacy concerns, which are a major concern when dealing with patients' data. The abuse of such information, irrespective of the fact that it has been collected with/without the consent of the individual, may discourage people from using these systems for fear of being followed or monitored by commercial or public organizations. These problems are compounded in WSNs that typically consist of a large number of resource-limited, low-cost sensor nodes. Due to the constraints on sensing, computing, and communication, it is necessary to minimize data exchange, and this can be done through data aggregation, for instance. Unfortunately, since WSNs are often deployed in remote and often dangerous environments where the data is vulnerable to tampering and eavesdropping, secure aggregation of data is essential. These problems are solved by protocols such as EESAP (Energy Efficient Secure Aggregation Protocol) and LEACH (Low-Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy) that enhance security while enhancing the utilization of resources. This paper proposes a review of security and data aggregation in WSNs, and a classification of safe aggregation algorithms along with the identification of directions for future research to address the challenges of this important field.

I. Introduction

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are indeed very crucial in today's world especially in the area of data acquisition and analysis in various fields. One of the good application in healthcare is Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs), a sub-class and a general use of WSN that employs small, low power sensors that are attached to or worn on the human body to monitor physiological signs. In the recent past, WBANs have been identified as useful networks, as shown in the following section. The past few years especially have seen the use of these technologies in health care due to their ability in changing the way health care is delivered and how patient's are monitored [1]. WBANs effectively improve the quality of patient services through frequent and timely monitoring of the patient's health status, hence early diagnosis and individual treatment. It reduces the rate of hospital visits and offers affordable health care services, especially in areas with scarce health facilities. The integration of IoT technologies in healthcare extends beyond patient monitoring to include innovative applications in disease detection and diagnosis. For instance, recent research has explored machine learning approaches for early detection of diseases such as osteosarcoma, highlighting the potential of these technologies in improving patient outcomes [26] Nevertheless, the wireless type of these networks is at high risk of threats, unauthorized access, and attacks that compromise privacy and security. These threats are even more important in the healthcare area where the patient's information has to be protected [2]. Recent advancements in IoT-based health monitoring systems have further emphasized the importance of balancing security and privacy with data usefulness in wireless sensor networks [23] Figure 1

Hierarchical wsn [19]