Abstract Over the last few years, Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) has completely transformed the healthcare industry. It is bringing out the most notable, and unprecedented impacts on human health, and has totally changed the way we look at the healthcare industry. The healthcare sector all around the globe are leapfrogging, and adopting the technology, helping in transforming drastically in a very short span of time. However, as more and more number of medical devices are being connected to IoMT, security issues like ensuring authenticity and integrity of the transmitted data are also on the rise. In view of the context, there is a need of an efficient cryptographic primitive that can address these issues in a viable manner. A signature scheme seems to be the natural choice to mitigate the security concerns. But, traditional signature schemes, both public-key-infrastructure-based and Identity-based, have their own disadvantages, which makes them unsuitable for IoMT networks. Thus, to address the security issues and problems like certificate management and key escrow, herein, we put forward the first multivariate-based certificateless signature scheme, namely, Multivariate Certificateless Signature (Mul-CLS), which is built on top of the intractability of multivariate-quadratic (MQ) problem. The fact that multivariate public key cryptosystem provides fast, post-quantum safe and efficient primitives makes it a front-runner candidate among the other post-quantum cryptography candidates. Our scheme Mul-CLS provides existential unforgeability against chosen message and chosen identity Super Type I and Super Type II adversary if solving the MQ problem is NP-hard. In addition to that, our proposed Mul-CLS presents itself as a robust and cost-friendly cryptographic building block for building IoMT networks.
Abstract Over the last few years, Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) has completely transformed the healthcare industry. It is bringing out the most notable, and unprecedented impacts on human health, and has totally changed the way we look at the healthcare industry. The healthcare sector all around the globe are leapfrogging, and adopting the technology, helping in transforming drastically in a very short span of time. However, as more and more number of medical devices are being connected to IoMT, security issues like ensuring authenticity and integrity of the transmitted data are also on the rise. In view of the context, there is a need of an efficient cryptographic primitive that can address these issues in a viable manner. A signature scheme seems to be the natural choice to mitigate the security concerns. But, traditional signature schemes, both public-key-infrastructure-based and Identity-based, have their own disadvantages, which makes them unsuitable for IoMT networks. Thus, to address the security issues and problems like certificate management and key escrow, herein, we put forward the first multivariate-based certificateless signature scheme, namely, Multivariate Certificateless Signature (Mul-CLS), which is built on top of the intractability of multivariate-quadratic (MQ) problem. The fact that multivariate public key cryptosystem provides fast, post-quantum safe and efficient primitives makes it a front-runner candidate among the other post-quantum cryptography candidates. Our scheme Mul-CLS provides existential unforgeability against chosen message and chosen identity Super Type I and Super Type II adversary if solving the MQ problem is NP-hard. In addition to that, our proposed Mul-CLS presents itself as a robust and cost-friendly cryptographic building block for building IoMT networks.
When Kevin Ashton proposed the catchword 'Internet of Things' in 1999, little did he know that technology will become an indispensable part of human lives in just two decades. In short, the Internet of Things (IoT), is a catch-all terminology used to describe devices connected to the internet. These devices can share and receive data as well as provide instructions over a network. By design itself, the IoT system requires multicasting data and information to a set of designated devices, securely. Taking everything into account, Broadcast Encryption (BE) seems to be the natural choice to address the problem. BE allows an originator to broadcast ciphertexts to a big group of receivers in a well-organized and competent way, while ensuring that only designated people can decrypt the data. In this work, we put forward the first Identity-Based Broadcast Encryption scheme based on multivariate polynomials that achieves post-quantum security. Multivariate public key cryptosystems (MPKC), touted as one of the most promising post-quantum cryptography candidates, forms the foundation on which our scheme relies upon, which allows it to be very cost-effective and faster when implemented. In addition, it also provides resistance to collusion attack, and as a consequence our scheme can be utilized to form an efficient and robust IoT system.
The Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) has gained significant research focus in both academic and medical institutions. Nevertheless, the sensitive data involved in IoMT raises concerns regarding user validation and data privacy. To address these concerns, certificateless signcryption (CLSC) has emerged as a promising solution, offering authenticity, confidentiality, and unforgeability. Unfortunately, most existing CLSC schemes are impractical for IoMT due to their heavy computational and storage requirements. Additionally, these schemes are vulnerable to quantum computing attacks. Therefore, research focusing on designing an efficient post-quantum CLSC scheme is still far-reaching. In this work, we propose PQ-CLSCL, a novel post-quantum CLSC scheme with linkability for IoMT. Our proposed design facilitates secure transmission of medical data between physicians and patients, effectively validating user legitimacy and minimizing the risk of private information leakage. To achieve this, we leverage lattice sampling algorithms and hash functions to generate the partial secret key, then employ the sign-then-encrypt method and design a link label. We also formalize and prove the security of our design, including indistinguishability against chosen-ciphertext attacks (IND-CCA2), existential unforgeability against chosen-message attacks (EU-CMA), and linkability. Finally, through comprehensive performance evaluation, our computation overhead is just 5% of other existing schemes. The evaluation results demonstrate that our solution is practical and efficient.
The rapid expansion of Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) networks has enabled continuous data collection from diverse medical sensors and devices, supporting real-time monitoring, diagnostics, and decision-making. However, the resource limitations of IoT nodes and the open nature of communication channels make healthcare data vulnerable to security and privacy breaches. To address these challenges, this paper presents a blockchain-assisted, privacy-preserving signature scheme leveraging Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) to ensure secure and trustworthy data sharing in Healthcare Internet of Things (H-IoT) environments. The proposed scheme integrates a quantum-designated verifier signature mechanism with a private blockchain infrastructure, where peer nodes validate and store healthcare data securely. Formal (software-based) and informal security analyses demonstrate the scheme's resistance to forgery, replay, and quantum attacks. Simulation experiments conducted in Python show that the proposed protocol achieves strong cryptographic performance, with a computational cost of 42.1ms and a communication overhead of 834 bits. Additionally, a blockchain-based prototype implementation quantifies the time required to append various numbers of blocks and process multiple healthcare transactions, confirming the scalability and practicality of the proposed solution. The results affirm that the scheme offers a reliable, efficient, and quantum-resilient framework for securing sensitive medical data across distributed IoMT healthcare systems.
The Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) is a compelling networking paradigm integrating wireless communications sensors, connected devices, and embedded computing technologies. The IoMT involves the collection of real-time health data using sophisticated medical sensors. In recent years, the IoMT has become increasingly significant within the broader context of the Internet of Things (IoT). It provides accessibility for health monitoring and poses security obstacles to safeguarding the confidentiality and privacy of patient data. Therefore, this article presents a blockchain-integrated quantum authentication scheme in sensor-assisted IoMT networks. The proposed concept utilizes blockchain technology to achieve efficient patient authentication without the need for third-party entities. In addition, a secure quantum authentication scheme is designed not to require patients to authenticate themselves when communicating with multiple doctors simultaneously. This protocol explicitly addresses how clinicians can misuse their professional roles toward patients in IoMT networks. An evaluation analysis assesses the proposed technique’s efficacy compared to existing authentication schemes. The performance analyses demonstrate that the proposed protocol is resilient against various security attacks. Also, the practical usability of the quantum authentication scheme proved its importance as a significant improvement in communication security for IoMT networks.
The convergence of 6G communication technologies and the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) has revolutionized modern healthcare by enabling real-time monitoring, intelligent diagnosis, and remote patient management. However, the proliferation of interconnected medical devices also exposes the ecosystem to severe security challenges, including identity forgery, data tampering, and emerging quantum-based attacks. To address these challenges, this paper proposes a blockchain-assisted quantum signature framework for securing data exchange in 6G - enabled IoMT environments. The proposed framework leverages quantum digital signatures (QDS) based on entangled photon states to ensure message authenticity and non-repudiation, while blockchain technology provides decentralized trust management and immutable transaction logging. A Medical Authorization Center (MAC) coordinates identity registration, signature verification, and consensus-based access control among IoMT entities. Furthermore, smart contracts are utilized to automate trust evaluation and audit trails, thereby mitigating insider and replay attacks. Performance analysis using Qiskit simulations and IBM’s quantum backends demonstrates an average signature fidelity of 91% and a communication efficiency of 75.61%, validating the framework’s robustness for resource-constrained medical devices. By fusing quantum communication primitives with blockchain-enabled transparency, this work presents a scalable and tamper-resistant security solution for next-generation healthcare networks. The convergence of 6G communication technologies and the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) has revolutionized modern healthcare by enabling real-time monitoring, intelligent diagnosis, and remote patient management. However, the proliferation of interconnected medical devices also exposes the ecosystem to severe security challenges, including identity forgery, data tampering, and emerging quantum-based attacks. To address these challenges, this paper proposes a blockchain-assisted quantum signature framework for securing data exchange in 6G-enabled IoMT environments. The proposed framework leverages quantum digital signatures (QDS) based on entangled photon states to ensure message authenticity and non-repudiation, while blockchain technology provides decentralized trust management and immutable transaction logging. A Medical Authorization Center (MAC) coordinates identity registration, signature verification, and consensus-based access control among IoMT entities. Furthermore, smart contracts are utilized to automate trust evaluation and audit trails, thereby mitigating insider and replay attacks. Performance analysis using Qiskit simulations and IBM’s quantum backends demonstrates an average signature fidelity of 91% and a communication efficiency of 75.61%, validating the framework’s robustness for resource-constrained medical devices. By fusing quantum communication primitives with blockchain-enabled transparency, this work presents a scalable and tamper-resistant security solution for next-generation healthcare networks.
The convergence of blockchain technology and the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) significantly enhances data security and interoperability in healthcare systems. However, emerging quantum computing capabilities pose critical threats to conventional cryptographic algorithms underpinning blockchain security. Moreover, as IoMT devices manage sensitive patient data and perform essential healthcare functions, ensuring robust protection against both classical and quantum attacks has become increasingly urgent. To mitigate these risks, this paper introduces a Post-Quantum Cryptography Integration Framework (PQCIF), designed to protect blockchain-enabled IoMT (BIoMT) systems and infrastructures against classical and quantum attacks. PQ-CIF is a hybrid framework leveraging NIST-standardized post-quantum cryptographic (PQC) algorithms combined with conventional public-private key pair cryptography schemes, strategically integrating them within BIoMT architectures for robust long-term security. We provide comprehensive evaluation metrics and present a detailed case study demonstrating the efficacy and minimal overhead of our proposed framework in a simulated healthcare blockchain network.