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Internet of Things (IoT)
10.1 Introduction
Internet of Things (IoT) is an emerging concept for the sensor-enabled things with internet protocol (IP) address. It can connect with the Internet and collect sensor data, analyze those data, and automatically take a decision. IoT is a network of devices (things)
connected to improve the performance of day-to-day life and also incorporates different
kinds of resource-constrained devices like implantable (RFID tags) (Fan et al. 2009), wearables (smart watches), and external devices (smart phones, thermostats, smart fridges).
Medical research surveys indicate that about 80% of the people older than 65 years suffer from at least one chronic disease. Many aged people have difficulty in taking care
of themselves (Dohr et al. 2010; Weinstein 2005). The report “IoT Healthcare Market of
Components, Application, End-User—Global Forecast to 2020” (Anonymous 2016a) says
that worldwide the IoT medical information market was worth $32.47 billion in 2015.
Also, this market value is estimated to increase by $163.24 billion in 2020. The reason
for this huge expectation is IoT health care’s timely treatment and smart communication
between the doctor and the patient. By using IoT medical devices, a doctor can remotely
track a patient’s health, the working of biomedical devices, and the treatment procedure
for the patient. This real-time monitoring of the patient’s physiological parameters are
useful to prevent health problems in the initial stage. On the contrary, these medical
devices are vulnerable to wireless attack when they are associated with Internet through
IPv6, in spite of the devices being secure with cryptographic mechanism. When these
devices are compromised by attackers, sensitive medical data will be exposed, which in
turn threatens the patient’s life. In case, security breaches are not addressed then it is
difficult for the technology development and lead to significant financial losses. From
the security perspective, it is a challenging task to develop a secure protocol for devices
with low battery power, low processing capability, and low memory capacity. Therefore,
this chapter focuses on reviewing security challenges in IoT medical devices during
communication across the devices. The conclusion of the review analysis will provide
the limitations and future scope of the IoT health care.
The chapter is encapsulated as follows: Section 2 describes the study on existing security issues in IoT communication protocol and solutions; Section 3 elaborates recent
incidents in medical device security; Section 4 focuses on technology used for securing IoT; Recommended positive measures for existing security issues are discussed in
Section 5; and Section 6 concludes with limitations and scope for future work.
10.2 Background
IoT is the buzzword for the wireless devices (things) with electronic sensor-based
networking. A wide variety of cheap sensors (wearable, implanted, and environmental)
have the possibility to create IoT health care. Also, these resource-constrained medical
devices and insecure communication protocols in IoT become vulnerable to numerous
security attacks. Therefore, this section concentrates on the study of the secure authentication scheme, protocol standardization, and optimizing communication security of medical devices (Olivier et al. 2015).
Internet of Things (IoT)
10.1 Introduction
Internet of Things (IoT) is an emerging concept for the sensor-enabled things with internet protocol (IP) address. It can connect with the Internet and collect sensor data, analyze those data, and automatically take a decision. IoT is a network of devices (things)
connected to improve the performance of day-to-day life and also incorporates different
kinds of resource-constrained devices like implantable (RFID tags) (Fan et al. 2009), wearables (smart watches), and external devices (smart phones, thermostats, smart fridges).
Medical research surveys indicate that about 80% of the people older than 65 years suffer from at least one chronic disease. Many aged people have difficulty in taking care
of themselves (Dohr et al. 2010; Weinstein 2005). The report “IoT Healthcare Market of
Components, Application, End-User—Global Forecast to 2020” (Anonymous 2016a) says
that worldwide the IoT medical information market was worth $32.47 billion in 2015.
Also, this market value is estimated to increase by $163.24 billion in 2020. The reason
for this huge expectation is IoT health care’s timely treatment and smart communication
between the doctor and the patient. By using IoT medical devices, a doctor can remotely
track a patient’s health, the working of biomedical devices, and the treatment procedure
for the patient. This real-time monitoring of the patient’s physiological parameters are
useful to prevent health problems in the initial stage. On the contrary, these medical
devices are vulnerable to wireless attack when they are associated with Internet through
IPv6, in spite of the devices being secure with cryptographic mechanism. When these
devices are compromised by attackers, sensitive medical data will be exposed, which in
turn threatens the patient’s life. In case, security breaches are not addressed then it is
difficult for the technology development and lead to significant financial losses. From
the security perspective, it is a challenging task to develop a secure protocol for devices
with low battery power, low processing capability, and low memory capacity. Therefore,
this chapter focuses on reviewing security challenges in IoT medical devices during
communication across the devices. The conclusion of the review analysis will provide
the limitations and future scope of the IoT health care.
The chapter is encapsulated as follows: Section 2 describes the study on existing security issues in IoT communication protocol and solutions; Section 3 elaborates recent
incidents in medical device security; Section 4 focuses on technology used for securing IoT; Recommended positive measures for existing security issues are discussed in
Section 5; and Section 6 concludes with limitations and scope for future work.
10.2 Background
IoT is the buzzword for the wireless devices (things) with electronic sensor-based
networking. A wide variety of cheap sensors (wearable, implanted, and environmental)
have the possibility to create IoT health care. Also, these resource-constrained medical
devices and insecure communication protocols in IoT become vulnerable to numerous
security attacks. Therefore, this section concentrates on the study of the secure authentication scheme, protocol standardization, and optimizing communication security of medical devices (Olivier et al. 2015).