Data Confidentiality in Healthcare Monitoring Systems Based on Image Steganography to Improve the Exchange of Patient Information Using the Internet of Things

Abstract

Recently, with the availability of fast and reliable Internet, the distance between a patient and a doctor is becoming unimportant. Physicians will be able to request the medical images of their patients regardless of the geographical area. However, a lot of challenges face such successful implementation. To facilitate remote diagnosis, patient electronic medical record (EMR), including medical images, that originates in one system needs to be exchanged either within the same organization or across different organizations. Steganography is the practice of concealing a secret message inside a cover medium. In this paper, steganography will be used to embed the patient’s personal information securely and imperceptibly in their medical images to enhance confidentiality in case of a distant diagnosis. The security of the medical data is improved to maintain confidentiality and integrity using IoT. The least significant bit of the approximate coefficient of integer wavelet transform is proposed. The distortion between the cover image and stego-image is obtained by measuring the mean square error and PSNR, and normalized cross-correlation is utilized to estimate the degree of closeness between the cover image and stego-image.

Cybersecurity for Sustainable Smart Healthcare: State of the Art, Taxonomy, Mechanisms, and Essential Roles

“…The carrier is how the key and cover media are communicated. The stego-key is the password for protecting sensitive patient medical information [150]. The main goal of digital steganography in smart healthcare is to conceal confidential patient information in digital media (such as movies, audio, and images) without causing numerous changes in the actual image, and security is improved by combining the steganography mechanism with a cryptographic mechanism, making it more difficult for unauthorized parties to discover or access sensitive patient information [45][150].…”

“…The main goal of digital steganography in smart healthcare is to conceal confidential patient information in digital media (such as movies, audio, and images) without causing numerous changes in the actual image, and security is improved by combining the steganography mechanism with a cryptographic mechanism, making it more difficult for unauthorized parties to discover or access sensitive patient information [45][150]. Digital steganography techniques are grouped into spatial domains (least significant bit, most significant bit, and other spatial hiding) and frequency domains (discrete cosine transform and discrete wavelet transform) based on their embedding domains [150]. Privacy preservation, data integrity, secure communication, medical imaging, telemedicine, and authentication are potential uses of digital steganography in smart healthcare.…”

“…Privacy preservation, data integrity, secure communication, medical imaging, telemedicine, and authentication are potential uses of digital steganography in smart healthcare. Digital steganography in smart healthcare protects patient privacy by hiding sensitive medical data within nonsensitive files to prevent unauthorized people from accessing and interpreting hidden information; it also facilitates secure communication between healthcare professionals by embedding patient data within communication channels; it improves the confidentiality and robustness integrity of stenographic transactions in smart healthcare; and it resists cyber-attacks [150].…”

Recent Advances in Steganography

“…Although steganography in healthcare shows potential, it also presents a distinct set of obstacles [48][49][50]:…”

“…The potential of steganography in healthcare is promising and offers intriguing prospects [48,51]: i. Integration with AI and Machine Learning: The utilisation of machine learning algorithms can enhance the effectiveness of steganographic techniques by increasing their capacity to hide data and making them more resistant to steganalysis.…”