Lightweight fog computing-based authentication protocols using physically unclonable functions for internet of medical things

The Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) is a network of connections between a medical information system and medical equipment. Fog computing for IoMT is a model for extending cloud computing and medical services to the edge of the network, but the conventional fog computing model does not support some necessary features, such as device-to-device (D2D) communications for the effective exchange of data and processing thereof between devices in the IoMT. This investigation develops a secure authentication scheme for the fog computing model with cooperative D2D communication support. Since the power and resources of the medical sensors are limited, the proposed protocols use lightweight cryptographic operations, including a one-way cryptographic hash function, the Barrel Shifter Physically Unclonable Function (BS-PUF), to ensure the security of the sensors and fog nodes and to avoid a computational burden on devices. The proposed protocols not only resist possible attacks and provide more security than related schemes, but also are more efficient. © 2021