: The outbreak of COVID-19 has led to a global heath emergency. Emerging from China, it has now been declared as a pandemic. Owing to the fast pace at which it spreads, its control and prevention has now become the greatest challenge. The inner structural analysis of the virus is an important area of research for the invention of the potential drug. The Countries are following different strategies and policies to fight against COVID-19, various schemes have also been employed to cope up with the economic crisis. While the government is struggling to balance between the public health sector and the economic collapse, the researchers and medicine practitioners are inclined towards obtaining treatment and early detection of the deadly disease. Further, the impact of COVID-19 on Dentistry is alarming and posing severe threats to the professionals as well. Now, the technology is helping the countries fight against the disease. ML and AI based applications are substantially aiding the process for detection and diagnosis of novel corona virus. Science of Robotics is another approach followed with an aim to improve patient care.

<p>In this era of universal electronic connectivity, communication is no more confined to transfer of data from one end to the other; rather it aims at secure data transfer. Communication sector has developed beyond this traditional boundary of data transfer and is now working on ways to provide data from the intended senders to the intended receivers in an unaltered form. Considering all these conditions, the data transfer needs to follow the principles of authentication, confidentiality and integrity. The former two have been addressed using digital signatures and encryption schemes respectively, while the solution to the later is the use of Message Authentication Code. This paper presents a Message Authentication Code scheme, which uses the biological characteristics represented by Deoxyribonucleic acid combined with the output of Blum Blum Shub Random Number Generator, as a secret key along with a novel hash algorithm. This Message Authentication Code structure is evaluated on the basis of National Institute of Science and Technology test suite for random numbers, avalanche criteria and network attacks. The results reveal that the proposed scheme performs well under all the criteria and thus is capable of preserving integrity; this increases its applicability in any data sensitive environment<em>.</em></p>

Abstract

With the introduction of electronic form of data, the need for an automatic system of security to protect the integrity of data while being transferred from one place to another is required. This is especially the case for a network in which the systems are accessed over a public network or internet. Security mechanisms involve the use of more than one algorithm. They further require that the participants should possess a secret key, which raises issues about creation, distribution and proper usage of these keys. The most effective technique used in provisioning security is Message Authentication Code (MAC) which helps in preserving integrity. MAC involves the use of secret key along with a hash algorithm. In this paper, we present an implementation of MAC using a secret key created by Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) and random output sequence of Linear Congruential Generator (LCG). The hash algorithm used is made more robust by adding complexity to the traditional SHA-160. The presented scheme RMAC (Robust Message Authentication Code) is tested on National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST) test suite for random numbers, avalanche criteria and resistance towards network attacks. The results reveal that the scheme is efficient and is applicable for a variety of security demanding environments.

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