A dynamic data security mechanism based on position aware Merkle tree for health rehabilitation services over cloud

Abstract

Cloud computing paradigm has simplified the delivery of diverse services with the federated organization of computing hardware, storage, software, and services. Many organizations have embraced cloud-based business models to cater to the dynamism of clients. Utility computing harnesses the cloud computing infrastructure to provide services on demand to the customers. It frees the clients from the burden of establishing expensive infrastructures, under-utilization, and wastage of resources, etc. Utility computing provides a wide range of services including storage, computing, networking, web hosting, email, groupware, and data center services. Almost all enterprise models are centered on these services to provide reliable solutions to the clients. In recent years, healthcare industries have resorted to cloud-based solutions to deliver services to remote clients. Rehabilitation is a vital component of healthcare, ascribing to the restoration of the physical, mental and sensory elements of patients. Telerehabilitation services are provided over the cloud for convenience of the healthcare providers and clients. However, these services require maintenance of medical records in the cloud storage for immediate access to the patients and caregivers. Data security is an important concern in such environments in protecting the privacy of a patient. It is required to implement stringent mechanisms for proof generation and verification for authentication and integrity checks. This paper presents a novel publicly certifiable method for the above requirements. This approach is based on a position aware Merkle tree, which employs a 3-tuple scheme, which has been testified for its robustness in providing authentication and data integrity services. The experimental results with the proposed system and performance metrics demonstrate the appropriateness of the system in health rehabilitation services.