A Secure Three-Factor User Authentication Protocol With Forward Secrecy for Wireless Medical Sensor Network Systems

The Internet of things is playing more and more important role in smart healthcare, smart grids, and smart transportation, and using wireless sensor network (WSN), we can easily obtain and transmit information. However, the data security and users’ privacy are the biggest challenges for WSN because sensor nodes have low computing power and low storage capacity and are easy to be captured, and wireless networks are vulnerable. In 2021, Shuai et al. proposed a lightweight three-factor anonymous authentication scheme for WSN. However, we found that their protocol is vulnerable to stolen-verifier attack, modification of messages’ attack, and no perfect forward secrecy. Then, a new three-factor anonymous authentication scheme using elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) is proposed. Through informal and formal security analyses, our scheme can resist various known attacks and maintains low computational complexity.

Internet of Things (IOT) is experiencing a super-fast growing phase. Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN), as the “five sense organs” and teleneuron of IOT, is developing fast along. Owing to the application-oriented characteristics of WSN, WSN applications may differ enormously in implementation methods. The WSN developers may have to rewrite the code for each and every application. Along with the increasing demand to WSN applications, WSN developers may have heavier tasks of programming for these applications. Thanks to TinyOS and NesC, an operating system and programming language designed especially for WSN, raises the WSN application's programming to a higher level. Large number of supported sensor hardware plus system provided and user-de-fined libraries eases WSN application programmers' jobs. How-ever, the massive amount of nodes' communication and networking, and security protection slows down the development pace. A unified and empirical WSN application implementation platform is one of the available solutions to the problem. This paper introduces an empirical WSN application implementation platform, which avails the WSN developers build an application with unified code template and network packet generation and processing strategies.

With the rapid growth of wireless medical sensor networks (WMSNs) based healthcare applications, protecting both the privacy and security from illegitimate users, are major concern issues since patient’s precise information is vital for the proper diagnosis procedure. So, authentication protocol is one of the efficient mechanisms to deal with trustworthy and authentic users. Several authentication protocols have been proposed in WMSNs environment. However, the most of these protocols are so susceptible to security threats and not suitable for practical use. In this article, recently proposed Amin et al.’s authentication scheme is reviewed and some vulnerabilities like off-line password guessing attack, user impersonation attack, known session-key temporary information attack, the revelation of secret parameters, and identity guessing attack are pointed out. To overcome all the above mentioned vulnerabilities, we have proposed an enhanced three-factor based remote user authentication protocol in WMSNs environment. Further, the proposed protocol is validated using Burrows–Abadi–Needham logic and then simulated using Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications tool. Moreover, the security analysis ensures that the proposed protocol is well protected from various types of malicious attacks. In addition, the performance evaluation shows better efficiency and suitability of our protocol over other related protocols.

A wireless sensor network (WSN) is a collection of sensor nodes which can monitor the physical activities and attributes of a whole spectrum of objects and environments. The purpose of collecting this data and processing it in a meaningful manner requires that it adds significant value to the end user. WSN are deployed ever more frequently and applications vary from providing an early alert system on the activity of a volcano, to controlling the movements of livestock so that farming output can be maximized using virtual fencing. There are many challenges facing wireless sensor networks, with one being found in the uniqueness of each application, and challenges arise when WSN developers try to adequately test such applications when they are deployed with varying numbers of nodes, in all ranges of environmental conditions. To implement such systems in hardware involves a huge financial investment and from a development perspective prevents the developer from changing hardware platforms or communications protocols throughout the testing phase without incurring further financial hardship. Due to this fact, tools which can accurately simulate the behavior and performance of real world WSN applications are in high demand and a crucial aspect in the continued growth of WSN in the Internet of Things (IoT). This paper presents a cloud based system which makes various simulation platforms available to multiple users who wish to test WSN routing protocols or the hardware constraints of the various WSN platforms. This simulation testbed is hosted on a Dell PowerEdge R720 server in the communications laboratory in the University of Limerick and it is made available to users through the use of a virtual machine. This offers users access to many of the popular WSN simulation environments with vast computing resources and storage but at far reduced costs for protocol simulation.

Internet of Things (IoT) has become an information bridge between societies. Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are one of the emergent technologies that work as the main force in IoT. Applications based on WSN include environment monitoring, smart healthcare, user legitimacy authentication, and data security. Recently, many multifactor user authentication schemes for WSNs have been proposed using smart cards, passwords, as well as biometric features. Unfortunately, these schemes are shown to be susceptible towards several attacks and these includes password guessing attack, impersonation attack, and Man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack due to non-uniform security evaluation criteria. In this paper, we propose a lightweight multifactor authentication scheme using only hash function of the timestamp (TS) and One Time Password (OTP). Furthermore, public key and private key is incorporated to secure the communication channel. The security analysis shows that the proposed scheme satisfies all the security requirement and insusceptible towards some well-known attack (password guessing attack, impersonation attack and MITM).

Due to the aging population issue and a shortage of health workers around the world, the demand of automatic patient monitoring systems is expected to increase in the near future. Wireless sensor networks have been recently used in many medical applications because of their properties such as low-power consumption, low cost and large network size. The objective of this research is to develop an automatic patient monitoring system to facilitate the real time monitoring of patients. The wireless medical sensor network has been designed and implemented using microcontroller CC2430 from Texas Instruments. Electrocardiogram sensor and triaxis accelerometer are deployed on the sensor node.

Healthcare applications are promising fields for wireless sensor networks called wireless medical sensor networks. The main issues in wireless medical sensor networks are reliable communication, patient mobility and security of sensed physiological data. In order to mobile patient monitoring, disconnected or unattended setting of wireless medical sensor networks is considered. The disconnected property causes periodic or offline data delivery of information. Moreover, medical sensors nodes should retain data for long time while they have limited battery and capacity. These challenges provide attacker to threat security of sensed data without being detected. In this paper, we propose an efficient aggregate signcryption technique to provide simultaneously confidentiality, integrity (by encrypting) and authenticating (by signing) for collected data. Moreover, the aggregation property reduces communication and space overhead as well as signcryption provides time efficiency by applying mostly linear operators. We further, compare our technique with the nest alternative works in the literature to show the efficiency and resilience against various attacks

Industry 4.0 (I4.0), also called the Fourth Industrial Revolution, promotes the intelligence of manufacturing. The introduced new technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT), big data, and cloud technology have brought the new model of production, also the chances and vision for industries. Construction 4.0 refers the spirit of I4.0 and introduces computerization and intellectualization applications in construction domain, which integrates existing engineering techniques, processes, and requirements and then establishes an adaptive, resource efficient, and smart construction process. The most representative technology such as BIM (Building Information Modeling) which digitalizes and visualizes the construction project, integrates different kinds information into the digital model, enhances the management of all construction life cycle stages. Furthermore, IoT is considered to be the internet’s most revolutionary development, which connects millions of objects and devices and keeps increasing by surprising rapidity. Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN), the most key technology of IoT, was composed by different kind of sensors, control elements, and networks, which enables objects to have sensing, control and communicate capabilities. By WSN development, more and more facilities and buildings were enabled to have intelligent, human-like capabilities. In this chapter, the frameworks and applications are proposed for the integration of IoT technology and internet enabled physical devices in the construction industry, and the major advantages and challenges are explored and identified. Furthermore, a pilot study is introduced to illustrate the integration of WSN and BIM technologies for construction safety management as the example of IoT application. In the study, many WSN nodes were placed on an underground tunnel, which collected hazardous gas, monitored temperature and humidity information in real time, then all the conditions were fed back by a self-constituted network and dynamically displayed on a 3D BIM model. When an abnormal situation was detected in a location, the BIM model on a remote management system alerted the location by turning red, simultaneously, the flash alarm and ventilator on site also started automatically for evacuation alert and hazard removal. The system can much enhance human safety and reduce risk and operation cost in construction site management. Finally, the benefits, limitations, and suggestions are summarized for further research.

The current scenario of the world needs enhanced medical technology along with reduced expenses in order to fulfill the good health of patients that are suffering from chronic diseases. Because of the increase in the demand of healthcare infrastructure, it is getting complex to build and provide world-class facilities in order to maintain the health of everyone. In recent years, there has been a huge advancement of wireless networks and electronics which directed to the development of wireless sensor network (WSN). It is considered that WSNs have the ability to change the future. These networks comprise several sensors which are low-powered nodes that can sense the data nearby, perform limited computations and can radio communicate with other nodes. The parameters which can be sensed by sensors can be temperature, light or vibrations. Wireless sensor networks are under rapid research all over the globe, and researchers are working on it meticulously. This technology has the capability to replace thousands of wires in medical field which can increase reliability and portability. This paper will investigate the current applications of WSNs utilized globally in healthcare system, the limitations removed after the development of WSNs, what are scientists still working on in order to remove the barriers healthcare industry is facing currently, and what led to the development and utilization of WSNs in healthcare, current state of the art and need to integrate this technology in accordance with current medical scenario to enhance the healthcare system with limited medical expenses.

The wireless medical sensor networks WMSN play a crucial role in healthcare monitoring remotely. In remote healthcare monitoring, the sensor nodes are deployed in patient's body for collecting physiological data and transmit these data over an insecure channel. The patient's health information is highly sensitive and important. Any malicious modification in physiological data will make wrong diagnoses and harm the patient health. Therefore, privacy, data security, and user authentication are extremely important for accessing patient's real-time heath information over an insecure channel. In this regard, this article proposes a secure and robust two-factor based remote user authentication protocol for healthcare monitoring. The authentication proof has done with the help of BAN logic, which ensures that the proposed scheme provides mutual authentication and session key agreement securely. The informal security verification proves that the developed protocol is secure from various security attacks. The simulation of the proposed scheme has been done using AVISPA tool, whose simulation results confirm that the proposed scheme is secure from active and passive attacks. Performance evaluation shows that the proposed protocol is efficient in terms of security features, computation cost, communication cost, and execution time.

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are among the most promising technologies of the new millennium. The opportunities afforded by being able to program networks of small, lightweight, low-power, computation- and bandwidth-limited nodes have attracted a large community of researchers and developers. However, the unique set of capabilities offered by the technology produces an exciting but complex design space, which is often difficult to negotiate in an application context. Deploying sensing physical environments produces its own set of challenges, and can push systems into failure modes, thus revealing problems that can be difficult to discover or reproduce in simulation or the laboratory.Sustained efforts in the area of wireless networked sensing over the last 15 years have resulted in a large number of theoretical developments, substantial practical achievements, and a wealth of lessons for the future. It is clear that in order to bridge the gap between (on the one hand) visions of very large scale, autonomous, randomly deployed networks and (on the other) the actual performance of fielded systems, we need to view deployment as an essential component in the process of developing sensor networks: a process that includes hardware and software solutions that serve specific applications and end-user needs. Incorporating deployment into the design process reveals a new and different set of requirements and considerations, whose solutions require innovative thinking, multidisciplinary teams and strong involvement from end-user communities.This special feature uncovers and documents some of the hurdles encountered and solutions offered by experimental scientists when deploying and evaluating wireless sensor networks in situ, in a variety of well specified application scenarios.The papers specifically address issues of generic importance for WSN system designers: (i) data quality, (ii) communications availability and quality, (iii) alternative, low-energy sensing modalities and (iv) system solutions with high end-user added value and cost benefits. The common thread is deployment and deployment evaluation. In particular, satisfaction of application requirements, involvement of the end-user in the design and deployment process, satisfactory system performance and user acceptance are concerns addressed in many of the contributions. The contributions form a valuable set, which help to identify the priorities for research in this burgeoning area: Robust, reliable and efficient data collection in embedded wireless multi-hop networks are essential elements in creating a true deploy-and-forget user experience. Maintaining full connectivity within a WSN, in a real world environment populated by other WSNs, WiFi networks or Bluetooth devices that constitute sources of interference is a key element in any application, but more so for those that are safety-critical, such as disaster response. Awareness of the effects of wireless channel, physical position and line-of-sight on received signal strength in real-world, outdoor environments will shape the design of many outdoor applications. Thus, the quantification of such effects is valuable knowledge for designers. Sensors' failure detection, scalability and commercialization are common challenges in many long-term monitoring applications; transferable solutions are evidenced here in the context of pollutant detection and water quality. Innovative, alternative thinking is often needed to achieve the desired long-lived networks when power-hungry sensors are foreseen components; in some instances, the very problems of wireless technology, such as RF irregularity, can be transformed into advantages. The importance of an iterative design and evaluation methodology—from analysis to simulation to real-life deployment—should be well understood by all WSN developers. The value of this is highlighted in the context of a challenging WPAN video-surveillance application based on a novel Nomadic Access Mechanism. Cost benefits to be drawn from devising a WSN based solution to classic application areas such as surveillance are often a prime motivator for WSN designers; an example is offered here based on the use of intelligent agents for intrusion monitoring. Last but not least, the practicality and usability of the WSN solutions found for novel applications is key to their adoption. This is particularly true when the end-users of the developed technology are medical patients. The importance of feedback, elegant hardware encapsulation and extraction of meaning from data is presented in the context of novel orthopedic rehabilitation aids.Overall, this feature offers wide coverage of most issues encountered in the process of design, implementation and evaluation of deployable WSN systems. We trust that designers and developers of WSN systems will find much work of value, ranging from lessons learned, through solutions to known hurdles, to novel developments that enhance applications. Finally, we would like to thank all authors for their valuable contributions!

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are indispensable building blocks for the Internet of Things (IoT). With the development of WSNs, privacy issues have drawn more attention. Existing work on the privacy-preserving range query mainly focuses on privacy preservation and integrity verification in two-tiered WSNs in the case of compromised master nodes, but neglects the damage of node collusion. In this paper, we propose a series of collusion-aware privacy-preserving range query protocols in two-tiered WSNs. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first to consider collusion attacks for a range query in tiered WSNs while fulfilling the preservation of privacy and integrity. To preserve the privacy of data and queries, we propose a novel encoding scheme to conceal sensitive information. To preserve the integrity of the results, we present a verification scheme using the correlation among data. In addition, two schemes are further presented to improve result accuracy and reduce communication cost. Finally, theoretical analysis and experimental results confirm the efficiency, accuracy and privacy of our proposals.

Wireless medical sensor networks (WMSNs) are used in remote medical service environments to provide patients with convenient healthcare services. In a WMSN environment, patients wear a device that collects their health information and transmits the information via a gateway. Then, doctors make a diagnosis regarding the patient, utilizing the health information. However, this information can be vulnerable to various security attacks because the information is exchanged via an insecure channel. Therefore, a secure authentication scheme is necessary for WMSNs. In 2021, Masud et al. proposed a lightweight and anonymity-preserving user authentication scheme for healthcare environments. We discover that Masud et al.’s scheme is insecure against offline password guessing, user impersonation, and privileged insider attacks. Furthermore, we find that Masud et al.’s scheme cannot ensure user anonymity. To address the security vulnerabilities of Masud et al.’s scheme, we propose a three-factor-based mutual authentication scheme with a physical unclonable function (PUF). The proposed scheme is secure against various security attacks and provides anonymity, perfect forward secrecy, and mutual authentication utilizing biometrics and PUF. To prove the security features of our scheme, we analyze the scheme using informal analysis, Burrows–Abadi–Needham (BAN) logic, the Real-or-Random (RoR) model, and Automated Verification of Internet Security Protocols and Applications (AVISPA) simulation. Furthermore, we estimate our scheme’s security features, computation costs, communication costs, and energy consumption compared with the other related schemes. Consequently, we demonstrate that our scheme is suitable for WMSNs.

The appearance of wireless sensor networks has attracted worldwide attention. Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) and Wireless Multimedia Sensor Networks (WMSNs) consist of wirelessly interconnected sensor nodes organised arbitrarily or deterministically in an environmental area which can gather, distribute and route information in different application areas. Power consumption in these networks is the foremost problem. WSNs are a recent generation of sensor networks, have an ample range of applications, their expansion and application will convey about extensive impact in human life and construction of all areas. Some of the applications include disaster management, landslide detection, glacial monitoring, wildlife tracking, healthcare, military applications, environmental monitoring, security surveillance, industrial process control and a large number of applications to robotics and Internet of Things (IOT) projects. This paper will demonstrate the elementary description of WSN followed by different energy-efficient power consumption protocols. Here we have performed the comparative performance analysis of different energy-efficient protocols. In our work we have compared MODLEACH with TSEP followed by TSEP with RELSEP.

With the booming integration of IoT technology in our daily life applications such as smart industrial, smart city, smart home, smart grid, and healthcare, it is essential to ensure the security and privacy challenges of these systems. Furthermore, time‐critical IoT applications in healthcare require access from external parties (users) to their real‐time private information via wireless communication devices. Therefore, challenges such as user authentication must be addressed in IoT wireless sensor networks (WSNs). In this paper, we propose a secure and lightweight three‐factor (3FA) user authentication protocol based on feature extraction of user biometrics for future IoT WSN applications. The proposed protocol is based on the hash and XOR operations, including (i) a 3‐factor authentication (i.e., smart device, biometrics, and user password); (ii) shared session key; (iii) mutual authentication; and (iv) key freshness. We demonstrate the proposed protocol’s security using the widely accepted Burrows–Abadi–Needham (BAN) logic, Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications (AVISPA) simulation tool, and the informal security analysis that demonstrates its other features. In addition, our simulations prove that the proposed protocol is superior to the existing related authentication protocols, in terms of security and functionality features, along with communication and computation overheads. Moreover, the proposed protocol can be utilized efficiently in most of IoT’s WSN applications, such as wireless healthcare sensor networks.