PSKA: usable and secure key agreement scheme for body area networks

  • Authors:
  • Krishna K. Venkatasubramanian;Ayan Banerjee;Sandeep Kumar S. Gupta

  • Affiliations:
  • Department of Computer and Information Science, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA and IMPACT Laboratory, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ;IMPACT Laboratory, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ;IMPACT Laboratory, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ

  • Venue:
  • IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine
  • Year:
  • 2010

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Abstract

A body area network (BAN) is a wireless network of health monitoring sensors designed to deliver personalized health-care. Securing intersensor communications within BANs is essential for preserving not only the privacy of health data, but also for ensuring safety of healthcare delivery. This paper presents physiological-signal-based key agreement (PSKA), a scheme for enabling secure intersensor communication within a BAN in a usable (plug-n-play, transparent) manner. PSKA allows neighboring nodes in a BAN to agree to a symmetric (shared) cryptographic key, in an authenticated manner, using physiological signals obtained from the subject. No initialization or predeployment is required; simply deploying sensors in a BAN is enough to make them communicate securely. Our analysis, prototyping, and comparison with the frequently used Diffie-Hellman key agreement protocol shows that PSKA is a viable intersensor key agreement protocol for BANs.