Towards fast and robust authentication schemes in Body Area Networks

Hodgkiss, Jack (2023) Towards fast and robust authentication schemes in Body Area Networks. Doctoral thesis (PhD), Manchester Metropolitan University.

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Abstract

The emergence of Body Area Networks (BANs) has paved the way for real-time sensing of human biometrics in addition to remote control of smart medical devices, which in turn is beginning to revolutionise the smart healthcare industry. However, due to their limited power and computational capabilities they are vulnerable to myriad of security attacks, thus securing BANs is paramount to their success and wider adoption in the medical and nonmedical domain. Achieving the desired security level for BANs while adhering to their strict constraints imposed by the limited resources available is an ongoing challenge. Solving such a challenge will be the focus of my thesis. In particular, my thesis will develop a novel, fast and robust authentication mechanisms amongst BAN devices while exploring new potential vulnerabilities that may threaten the existing approaches. To accomplish this goal the thesis provides a review of the state-of-the-art literature exploring authentication protocols that focus on biometrics, physical channel characters or other approaches, before proceeding to introduce three novel works. Firstly, identifying a concerning vulnerability within existing Electrocardiogram (ECG) based schemes, secondly, a solution to mitigate this exploit and finally a strategy which aims to reduce the time taken to complete the authentication process.