Journal Article

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

Laila, Fabiha, Sultana, Maliha, Taher, Kazi Abu, Islam, Muhammad Nazrul, Hossain, Afrida

2020

Overview

Background Data 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. Methods Relatively 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. Results Research 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. Conclusions A 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.

• Publisher: BioMed Central,BioMed Central Ltd,Springer Nature B.V,BMC
• Subject: Analysis / Blockchain / Blockchain - standards / Cloud Computing / Computer hackers / Computer networks / Computer Security / Cryptography / Cybersecurity / Cyberterrorism / Data integrity / Data retrieval / Data security / Data storage / Data transmission / Digitization / Electronic devices / Electronic Health Records - organization & administration / Electronic Health System / Encryption / Firewalls / Health Informatics / Healthcare Information Systems / Humans / Image transmission / Information storage and retrieval / Information Storage and Retrieval - methods / Information Systems and Communication Service / Internet / Management of Computing and Information Systems / Medical equipment / Medical Images / Medical imaging / Medical imaging equipment / Medical informatics / Medical Records / Medical research / Medicine / Medicine & Public Health / Network security / Network security software / Patients / Research Article / Safety and security measures / Security / Security management / Technology / Trust / Virtual networks / Virtual private networks / Zero Trust