Blockchain-Based Identity Management Systems in Health IoT: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Identity and Access Management (IAM) systems are crucial for any information system, such as healthcare information systems. Health IoT (HIoT) applications are targeted by attackers due to the highvolume and sensitivity of health data. Thus, IAM systems for HIoT need to be built with high standards and based on reliable frameworks. Blockchain (BC) is an emerging technology widely used for developing decentralized IAM solutions. Although, the integration of BC in HIoT for proposing IAM solutions has gained recent attention, BC is an evolving technology and needs to be studied carefully before using it for IAM solutions in HIoT applications. A systematic literature review was conducted on the BC-based IAM systems in HIoT applications to investigate the security aspect. Twenty-four studies that satisfied the inclusion criteria and passed the quality assessment were included in this review. We studied BC-based solutions in HIoT applications to explore the IAM system architecture, security requirements and threats. We summarized the main components and technologies in typical BC-based IAM systems and the layered architecture of the BC-based IAM system in HIoT. Accordingly, the security threats and requirements were summarized. Our systematic review shows that there is a lack of a comprehensive security framework, risk assessments, and security and functional performance evaluation metrics in BC-based IAM in HIoT applications.INDEX TERMS access control, Blockchain, e-Health, health IoT, identity management, security, systematic literature review.

Prospect of Internet of Medical Things: A Review on Security Requirements and Solutions

“…Electronic health records (EHR), patient health records (PHR), and mobile health are examples of subdomains within the e-health industry (m-Health). The Internet of Things (IoT) for health is widely used in e-Health areas [ 7 ]. Figure 1 shows the security vulnerabilities of the IoMT environment.…”

Cybersecurity Risk Management Framework for Blockchain Identity Management Systems in Health IoT

“…The contribution of our previous paper [ 4 ] was to review the BC-IdM systems in HIoT. In that study, we reviewed 24 studies that proposed BC-IdM solutions in HIoT applications and, as a result, identified the architecture of BC-IdM systems in HIoT, covered security and privacy concerns, and identified the need to develop a comprehensive cybersecurity risk management framework and conduct security risk assessments for BC-based IdM systems in HIoT.…”

“…Moreover, several studies have also applied Blockchain for developing decentralized IdM systems in HIoT. These studies were reviewed and analysed in [ 4 ].…”

“…BC-IdM for HIoT systems is a complicated system that consists of many primary and secondary assets. Our previous work [ 4 ] has shown the broad use of BC-based IdM in HIoT, the main technologies and components of such systems, and some of the security and privacy risks that such systems could involve. The main architecture for BC-IdM for HIoT systems consists of the user, application, BC, off-chain, connectivity, and HIoT device layers.…”

“…To build a reliable HIoT BC-IdM system, security risks must be considered and managed systematically. Therefore, according to recommendations by [ 6 ] about the need for risk management in BC-IdM, as well as findings from our previous study [ 4 ], security risk management is needed for HIoT BC-IdM systems.…”