A Combined Approach of PUF and Physiological Data for Mutual Authentication and Key Agreement in WMSN

Wireless Medical Sensor Network (WMSN) is a kind of Ad-hoc Network that is used in the health sector to continuously monitor patients’ health conditions and provide instant medical services, over a distance. This network facilitates the transmission of real-time patient data, sensed by resource-constrained biosensors, to the end user through an open communication channel. Thus, any modification or alteration in such sensed physiological data leads to the wrong diagnosis which may put the life of the patient in danger. Therefore, among many challenges in WMSN, the security is most essential requirement that needs to be addressed. Hence, to maintain the security and privacy of sensitive medical data, this article proposed a lightweight mutual authentication and key agreement (AKA) scheme using Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) enabled sensor nodes. Moreover, to make the WMSN more secure and reliable, the physiological data like the electrocardiogram (ECG) of the patients are also considered. In order to establish its accuracy and security, the scheme undergoes validation through the Real or Random (RoR) Model and is further confirmed through simulation using the Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications (AVISPA) tool. A thorough examination encompassing security, performance, and a comparative assessment with existing related schemes illustrates that the proposed scheme not only exhibits superior resistance to well-known attacks in comparison to others but also upholds a cost-effective strategy at the sensor node, specifically, a reduction of 35.71% in computational cost and 49.12% in communication cost.