MSF: A Comprehensive Security Framework for mHealth Applications

Mobile health (mHealth) applications are growing in popularity due to their effectiveness in delivering healthcare services and improving patient health outcomes. mHealth apps are also increasingly targeted by attackers as they handle sensitive and private medical and personal data. Existing research indicates that lack of security cognizance among app developers is the leading cause of security vulnerabilities in mHealth apps. In this paper, we propose a security framework that provides authentication, authorization, secure storage and transmission of medical data and workflows for mHealth applications. The proposed framework can be easily imported into new and existing mHealth apps to mitigate its security and privacy vulnerabilities. To prove the framework's effectiveness, we use a dummy mHealth app built on top of it and confirm via our findings that the framework can be easily integrated into any mHealth app and reduce its security and privacy risks without compromising user experience.