Sec-Health: A Blockchain-Based Protocol for Securing Health Records

Abstract

Storing and sharing health records through electronic systems pose security risks. To address them, several countries' regulations have established that healthcare information systems must fulfill security properties (confidentiality, access control, integrity, revocation and anonymity) and complementary ones (emergency access and interoperability). Upon tackling these issues, several proposals present security limitations and/or address specific properties only. We propose Sec-Health, a blockchain-based protocol that secures health records, addressing all of the main security and complementary properties defined in current regulations. We show that Sec-Health is a suitable solution by analyzing it under several attack scenarios and describing how it overcomes the problems of existing solutions. Furthermore, we evaluate a Sec-Health Proof of Concept, showing that it can reduce from 26% up to 90% the time to access health records, and reduce up to 50% client-side memory overhead, compared to related work.

Analysis of Publications on Health Information Management Using the Science Mapping Method: A Holistic Perspective

“…Digital tools, such as electronic health records and patient information systems, have a vital role in enabling healthcare professionals to make well-informed treatment decisions [80]. Multiple studies suggest that HIM needs to be continuously improved, particularly in terms of safety and quality [5,81,82]. Governance and policy making play a crucial role in healthcare management, as emphasized by Barbazza et al (2022) [83] and Begany and Martin (2020) [84].…”

“…In contrast, the clinical coding and quality improvement themes concentrate on issues of quality and safety. New studies can inform efforts to improve quality by analyzing various geographies and management systems [5,81,82]. Past research often focused on broader themes of quality and safety, whereas contemporary studies provide more distinct and applicable recommendations.…”

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

“…Such breaches can have catastrophic repercussions, including identity theft, fraud, and medical misconduct [50]. The compromised healthcare data are highly valued on the dark web and black market [30]. According to a report by the Absolute Software Corporation, healthcare data breaches cost between US$250,000 and US$2.5 million [51].…”

“…Some of the common cyber threats and attacks in smart healthcare include healthcare data breaches, privacy concerns, denial-of-service (DoS) and distributed DoS (DDoS) attacks, ransomware, phishing attacks, eavesdropping attacks, man-in-the-middle attacks, impersonation attacks, insider threats, replay attacks, medical identity thefts, brute-force attacks, fake base stations, supply chain attacks, medjacking, advanced persistent threats, SQL injection attacks, legacy systems, side-channel attacks, jamming attacks, buffer overflow, Sybil attacks, routing attacks, cross-site scripting attacks, cross-site request forgery attacks, session hijacking attacks, account hijacking, cookie manipulation attacks, sensor attacks, tampering attacks, zeroday vulnerabilities, cryptographic attacks, stolen physical smart device attacks, cloud-based threats, medical IoT device vulnerabilities, attacks associated with blockchain, evasion attacks, poisoning attacks, extraction attacks/model stealing/model inversion, and regulatory compliance challenges [24][25][26][27][28][29]. These attacks target patients' health information, financial information (e.g., credit card and bank account numbers), patients' identifying information (e.g., social security numbers), and medical research and innovation intellectual property, thus compromising privacy, confidentiality, access control, integrity, authentication, nonrepudiation, anonymity, and availability [30][31][32]. Between March 2022 and March 2023, data breaches in the healthcare industry cost nearly US$11 million [33].…”

A Novel Authentication Scheme Based on Verifiable Credentials Using Digital Identity in the Context of Web 3.0

“…In Ref. [129], A blockchain-based protocol called Sec-Health is proposed by Costa, Pinheiro, Cordeiro, Araújo, and Abelém to secure health records. Their approach highlights how crucial blockchain is to safeguarding private patient data, data integrity, and sensitive health information.…”