Security and Privacy in Cyber-Physical Systems

Chapter 15Data Security and Privacy in Cyber-Physical Systems for Healthcare

Aida Čaušević, Hossein Fotouhi and Kristina Lundqvist

Mälardalen University, Västerås, Sweden

15.1 Introduction

We are witnessing a tremendous development in the areas of wireless sensor devices and supporting wireless communication due to ever-changing technological requirements, social and individual human needs, and new regulations. Recent technological innovations and scientific findings have brought changes into everyday life. For instance, in healthcare applications, it introduces less expensive, noninvasive, and continuous health monitoring with real-time medical data acquisition via the Internet. Patients are provided with a number of small sensors, placed on/in their body or within their homes in order to monitor various vital signs and provide feedback to physicians. Based on the collected data, physicians are able to make a suitable diagnosis and a treatment plan. In most cases, these solutions aim to help the chronically ill and elderly people to live independently in their home, while being monitored and nursed by their caregivers. Besides maintaining an optimal health status of elderly people, these systems can even alert medical staff in case of life-threatening changes in vital signs.

The most common way to build up such a system is to employ wireless body area networks (WBANs) that consist of a number of sensor nodes, capable of collecting, processing, and transmitting the collected ...