Wireless Body Sensor Networks: Security, Privacy, and Energy Efficiency in the Era of Cloud Computing

In this paper, the authors provide a detailed overview and technical discussion and analysis of the latest research trends in securing body sensor networks. The core of this work aims at: (1) identifying the resource limitations and energy challenges of this category of wireless sensor networks, (2) considering the life-critical applications and emergency contexts that are encompassed by body sensor network services, and (3) studying the effect of these peculiarities on the design and implementation of rigorous and efficient security algorithms and protocols. The survey discusses the main advancements in the design of body sensor network cryptographic services (key generation and management, authentication, confidentiality, integrity, and privacy) and sheds the light on the prominent developments achieved in the field of securing body sensor network data in Cloud computing architectures. The elastic virtualization mechanisms employed in the Cloud, as well as the lucrative computing and storage resources available, makes the integration of body sensor network applications, and Cloud platforms a natural choice that is packed with various security and privacy challenges. The work presented in this paper focuses on Cloud privacy and integrity mechanisms that rely on tamper-proof hardware and energy-efficient cryptographic data structures that are proving to be well-suited for operation in untrusted Cloud environments. This paper also examines two crucial design patterns that lie at the crux of any successful body sensor network deployment which are represented in: (1) attaining the right balance between the degree, complexity, span, and strength of the cryptographic operations employed and the energy resources they consume. (2) Achieving a feasible tradeoff between the privacy of the human subject wearing the body sensor network and the safety of this subject. This is done by a careful analysis of the medical status of the subject and other context-related information to control the degree of disclosure of sensitive medical data. The paper concludes by presenting a practical overview of the cryptographic support in the main body sensor network development frameworks such and TinyOS and SPINE and introduces a set of generalized guideline patterns and recommendations for designing and implementing cryptographic protocols in body sensor network environments.