A Lightweight and Secure Authentication Scheme for IoT Based E-Health Applications

Internet of Things (IoT) indicates to a network, which consists of physical objects able to collect and sharing electronic information. IoT contains a wide set of "smart" devices and sensors which transfer data at the network through IoT applications. The rapid expansion of IoT and wireless technologies lead to finding new opportunities for growth in various fields such as Education, Transportation, Agriculture, and especially in the Healthcare sector. However, the growing use of IoT services, especially in E-health applications will increase security challenges, such as authentication of several connected objects and exchanged data. Due to the sensitivity of e-health applications, the aspect of authenticity is one of the most significant challenges, which should be addressed effectively. Therefore, E-health applications require an authentication scheme to protect data transfer, use and exchange between sensor nodes and Base Station. E-health applications are prone to several hacks, and this is due to all communication occurred through a wireless medium. Furthermore, IoT has low capabilities components in computing and energy resources. So, one of the major goals of building security protocols is to improve using of the network, which allows sensors to save energy and lead to extend the network's lifetime and to be resistant against several types of attacks. At this research, we are proposing an efficient secured group-based lightweight authentication scheme for IoT based E-health applications; this scheme authenticates and establishes secure channels through sensor nodes and Base Station. The proposed scheme with a feature of the group-based node will reduce distance and consumed energy, as well as leads to reduce communication cost. In addition, it will be resistant against hacks by using elliptic curve cryptography (ECC).