Towards the Representation of Network Assets in Health Care Environments Using Ontologies

Abstract

Objectives The aim of the study is to design an ontology model for the representation of assets and its features in distributed health care environments. Allow the interchange of information about these assets through the use of specific vocabularies based on the use of ontologies. Methods Ontologies are a formal way to represent knowledge by means of triples composed of a subject, a predicate, and an object. Given the sensitivity of network assets in health care institutions, this work by using an ontology-based representation of information complies with the FAIR principles. Federated queries to the ontology systems, allow users to obtain data from multiple sources (i.e., several hospitals belonging to the same public body). Therefore, this representation makes it possible for network administrators in health care institutions to have a clear understanding of possible threats that may emerge in the network. Results As a result of this work, the “Software Defined Networking Description Language—CUREX Asset Discovery Tool Ontology” (SDNDL-CAO) has been developed. This ontology uses the main concepts in network assets to represent the knowledge extracted from the distributed health care environments: interface, device, port, service, etc. Conclusion The developed SDNDL-CAO ontology allows to represent the aforementioned knowledge about the distributed health care environments. Network administrators of these institutions will benefit as they will be able to monitor emerging threats in real-time, something critical when managing personal medical information.

Developing a Novel Ontology for Cybersecurity in Internet of Medical Things-Enabled Remote Patient Monitoring

“…Axioms facilitate the definition of the semantics of concepts and relations, expressing certain constraints on their values or cardinalities. The incorporation of axioms allows for the representation of specific capabilities or features of a concept while preventing the introduction of new concepts that might not be reused [51]. This way, the information about IoMT, RPM, and vulnerabilities can be queried or updated by the corresponding people or applications.…”

Knowledge Representation and Management: Notable Contributions in 2021

“…The section editors' initial screening based on the title and abstract resulted in 326 papers. This set of papers was further reviewed jointly by the section editors to select a consensus list of 15 candidate best papers [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. The four top-ranked papers according to expert reviewers' evaluation were selected as the best papers in the field of KRM published in 2021 (see Table 1).…”

“…Santamaría et al, [17] developed an ontology for representing computer network assets and features in healthcare environments, called the Software Defined Networking Description Language -CUREX Asset Discovery Tool Ontology (SDNDL-CAO). The ontology was designed to model data from distributed healthcare environments regarding devices and networks' topologies within the context of detecting potential cybersecurity vulnerabilities.…”

Security and Privacy in Distributed Health Care Environments

“…The article by Prieto Santamaría et al 5 describes the development of ontological models to represent distributed health care computer networks' data by reusing and creating classes and properties consistent with the information context. Ontologies are a formal way to express knowledge employing triples composed of a subject, a predicate, and an object.…”