System and methods for efficient authentication of medical wireless self-organizing network nodes

Abstract

A medical ad hoc wireless network (10) is deployed in a healthcare medical facility surrounding individual patients and including wireless nodes (A, B, . . . , Z). Before deployment, each node (A, B, . . . , Z) is pre-initialized with a public key certificate (22) and offers a trust and symmetric key distribution service (32). In joining the ad hoc network (10), a node (B) authenticates and registers to one randomly self-chosen node (A) by using certified public keys (20). Such node (A) becomes Trusted Portal (TPA) of the node (B). The node (B) dynamically registers to a new self-chosen TP node when its old TP node leaves the ad hoc network (10). The network (10) supports symmetric key authentication between nodes registered to the same TP node. Additionally, it supports symmetric key authentication between nodes registered to different TP nodes.

Description

technical field [0001] The present invention relates to security in network systems and methods. It finds particular application in conjunction with medical ad hoc networking systems and will be described with specific references thereto. However, it should be understood that the invention also finds application in connection with other short range network systems and the like. Background technique [0002] Typically, ad hoc networks are deployed in hospitals and medical facilities for medical patient care and monitoring. Typically, medical mobile ad hoc networks are built around a single patient or a small group of patients. In the medical mobile ad hoc network, medical equipment peer-to-peer communication. Each device provides a set of medical services and requires access to a set of medical services on other devices. Clinicians may also have access to such devices, eg, by using a PDA to initiate an injection drive to administer morphine to a patient. [0003] It is n...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

However, symmetric-key cryptography is limited to scalability and secure management

Key management is very complex, for example when updating the key in one of the nodes or adding a new node, the rest of the nodes must also be updated to share the key with the new node

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