Security and Privacy of Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) Based Healthcare Applications: A Review

Abstract

Recent technological advancements have significantly transformed an individual's perception of the traditional way of carrying out day to day operations. Internet of Things has to be turned out to be a growing trend in various segments in the present world, including the healthcare context. However, this rapid revolution towards IoT has also created several uncertainties and questions over the security of data which is stored in various connected things. With the number of things such as sensors and devices is growing, preserving robust security and privacy of sensitive data becomes more challenging. These security and privacy issues are resulted from deteriorating the effectiveness of Internet of Things (IoT) based healthcare services and adversely impact on individual's sensitive health information. Since data in the healthcare field is critical and sensitive; security and privacy safeguarding of the IoT healthcare paradigm makes matters even more problematic. In order to gain a widespread idea about the risks and threats related to IoT healthcare application, this study reviews a variety of relevant previous publications. The primary goal of this article is to provide insights into multiple sensors devices used in IoT healthcare context and the potential security and privacy issues in different IoT layers. Data are collected from 30 peer-reviewed publications on IoT based healthcare applications published between 2016 and 2018. We have considered numerous threats, attacks, and risks that can affect different layers in IoT based healthcare applications such as (Perception Layer, Network Layer, Middleware, Application Layer, and Business Layer). We have also considered different types of sensor devices which are used in IoT based healthcare applications. For the analysis, we categorize the sensor devices as wearable, implantable, ambient and stationery. Further, we analyze the proposed solutions stated in previous articles to obtain out the most recommended solutions that can mitigate threats and risks in IoT based healthcare application context. Our results show that the network layer is the most vulnerable layer to numerous security and privacy threats and attacks. And the applications layer is the second most vulnerable layer, and wearable sensors were utilized in the majority of IoT based healthcare applications. In addition, China and the USA have the most significant focus on security and privacy of IoMT based healthcare applications. This study intends to enhance awareness among application designers, developers and users such as healthcare professionals and patients by allowing them to identify and quantify potential IoT healthcare application-related threats and risks.