A User-Based Authentication and DoS Mitigation Scheme for Wearable Wireless Body Sensor Networks

Abstract

Wireless Body Sensor Networks (WBSNs) is one of the greatest growing technology for sensing and performing various tasks. The information transmitted in the WBSNs is vulnerable to cyber-attacks, therefore security is very important. Denial of Service (DoS) attacks are considered one of the major threats against WBSNs security. In DoS attacks, an adversary targets to degrade and shut down the efficient use of the network and disrupt the services in the network causing them inaccessible to its intended users. If sensitive information of patients in WBSNs, such as the medical history is accessed by unauthorized users, the patient may suffer much more than the disease itself, it may result in loss of life. This paper proposes a User-Based authentication scheme to mitigate DoS attacks in WBSNs. A five-phase User-Based authentication DoS mitigation scheme for WBSNs is designed by integrating Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) with Rivest Cipher 4 (RC4) to ensure a strong authentication process that will only allow authorized users to access nodes on WBSNs.