Towards developing a secure medical image sharing system based on zero trust principles and blockchain technology

BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making

Muhammad Nazrul Islam¹  Fabiha Laila¹  Afrida Hossain¹  Maliha Sultana¹  Kazi Abu Taher² 

[1] Department of Computer Science Engineering, Military Institute of Science and Technology, Mirpur Cantonment, 1216, Dhaka, Bangladesh;Department of Information and Communication Technology, Bangladesh University of Professionals, Mirpur Cantonment, 1216, Dhaka, Bangladesh;

关键词: Medical Records;    Medical Images;    Electronic Health System;    Blockchain;    Zero Trust;    Security;    Inter Planetary File System;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12911-020-01275-y

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundData security has been a critical topic of research and discussion since the onset of data sharing in e-health systems. Although digitalization of data has increased efficiency and speed, it has also made data vulnerable to cyber attacks. Medical records in particular seem to be the regular victims of hackers. Several data breach incidents throughout history have warranted the invention of security measures against these threats. Although various security procedures like firewalls, virtual private networks, encryption, etc are present, a mix of these approaches are required for maximum security in medical image and data sharing.MethodsRelatively new, blockchain has become an effective tool for safeguarding sensitive information. However, to ensure overall protection of medical data (images), security measures have to be taken at each step, from the beginning, during and even after transmission of medical images which is ensured by zero trust security model. In this research, a number of studies that deal with these two concepts were studied and a decentralized and trustless framework was proposed by combining these two concepts for secured medical data and image transfer and storage.ResultsResearch output suggested blockchain technology ensures data integrity by maintaining an audit trail of every transaction while zero trust principles make sure the medical data is encrypted and only authenticated users and devices interact with the network. Thus the proposed model solves a lot of vulnerabilities related to data security.ConclusionsA system to combat medical/health data vulnerabilities has been proposed. The system makes use of the immutability of blockchain, the additional security of zero trust principles, and the scalability of off chain data storage using Inter Planetary File Systems (IPFS). The adoption of this system suggests to enhance the security of medical or health data transmission.

【 授权许可】

CC BY