Lightweight Mutual Authentication and Key Agreement Scheme for Wearable Devices in Fog-enabled WBAN

Abstract

Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) play a crucial role within the broader Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) ecosystem, supporting seamless connectivity and information exchange between medical devices and systems to improve healthcare monitoring and management. WBANs are increasingly favored as a cost-effective and efficient solution for remote health data monitoring in smart E-healthcare systems. WBAN facilitates the collection and transmission of critical and confidential patient health information. However, mobility and open communication channels in WBAN present security vulnerabilities, such as unauthorized access and data leakage. Furthermore, due to the limited resources of wearable devices, it is crucial to develop a lightweight protocol to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity of transmitted data. In this paper, we propose a secure and efficient mutual authentication and key agreement scheme that employs a lightweight cryptographic hash function and straightforward XOR operations for wearable devices in WBAN based on fog computing. We conducted a comparative analysis of the existing methods, considering the performance costs and security requirements. The proposed scheme is shown both efficient and robust, making it suitable for practical applications.