Building a gateway with open source software for secure-DICOM communication over insecure networks

For Teleradiology the exchange of DICOM-images is needed for several purposes. Existing solutions often don't consider about the needs for data security and data privacy. Communication is done without any encryption over insecure networks or with encryption using proprietary solutions, which reduces the data communication possibilities to partners with the same equipment. Our goal was to build a gateway, which offers a transparent solution for secure DICOM-communication in a heterogeneous environment. We developed a PC-based gateway system with DICOM-communication to the in-house network and secure DICOM communication for the communication over the insecure network. One gateway installed at each location is responsible for encryption/decryption. The sender just transfers the image data over the DICOM protocol to the local gateway. The gateway forwards the data to the gateway on the destination site using the secure DICOM protocol, which is part of the DICOM standard. The receiving gateway forwards the image data to the final destination again using the DICOM-Protocol. The gateway is based on Open Source software and runs under several operating systems. Our experience shows a reliable solution, which solves security issues for DICOM communication of image data and integrates seamless into a heterogeneous DICOM environment.