A novel and efficient user access control scheme for wireless body area sensor networks

Wireless body area networks (WBANs) can be applied to provide healthcare and patient monitoring. However, patient privacy can be vulnerable in a WBAN unless security is considered. Access to authorized users for the correct information and resources for different services can be provided with the help of efficient user access control mechanisms. This paper proposes a new user access control scheme for a WBAN. The proposed scheme makes use of a group-based user access ID, an access privilege mask, and a password. An elliptic curve cryptography-based public key cryptosystem is used to ensure that a particular legitimate user can only access the information for which he/she is authorized. We show that our scheme performs better than previously existing user access control schemes. Through a security analysis, we show that our scheme is secure against possible known attacks. Furthermore, through a formal security verification using the AVISPA (Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications) tool, we show that our scheme is also secure against passive and active attacks.