PSKA: usable and secure key agreement scheme for body area networks

A Body Area Network (BAN) is a wireless network of health monitoring sensors designed to deliver personalized health-care. Securing inter-sensor communications within BANs is essential for preserving not only the privacy of health data but also for ensuring safety of healthcare-delivery. This paper presents Physiological Signal based Key Agreement (PSKA), a scheme for enabling secure inter-sensor communication within a BAN in a usable (plug-n-play, transparent) manner. PSKA allows neighboring nodes in a BAN to agree to a symmetric (shared) cryptographic key, in an authenticated manner, using physiological signals obtained from the subject. No initialization or pre-deployment is required; simply deploying sensors in BAN is enough to make them communicate securely. Contributions of the paper are as follows: 1) description of PSKA key agreement protocol, 2) analysis of its security characteristics, 3) validation of PSKA utilizing two of the most commonly collected physiological signals ph...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2010
• Where: TITB
• Authors: Krishna K. Venkatasubramanian, Ayan Banerjee, Sandeep K. S. Gupta
• Keywords: Education, Key Agreement, Key Agreement Protocol, Physiological Signals, TITB 2010