Lightweight Zero Knowledge Proof-Based Multi Access Control Schema for Smart Telehealth System

Smart healthcare systems play a pivotal role in delivering accessible medical services, especially in remote environments where patients rely on wearable devices to collect medical data, subsequently transmitted to caregivers for diagnosis purpose. Despite the benefits of telehealth systems, their vulnerability to security breaches stemming from insecure communication channels highlights the critical need for robust mechanisms ensuring secure data transmission and access control. These mechanisms are essential to verify the legitimacy of both the patients and caregivers. To address these challenges, we propose ZKP-MAC, a lightweight Zero Knowledge proof-based authentication and access control scheme specifically tailored for Telehealth systems. Our proposed scheme integrates physical unclonable functions (PUFs), leveraging cryptographic keys derived from device hardware fingerprints to authenticate patient data. Additionally, we adopt a zero-knowledge proof protocol for caregivers' authentication and access control. By regenerating keys based on device hardware fingerprints, our approach ensures lightweight, secure, and authentic communication. Additionally, our model enables dynamic key management mechanism to regulate data access effectively and continuously in telehealth applications. Experimental results demonstrate the robustness of our approach against various security threats, offering features such as perfect backward secrecy and mutual access control. We conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the ZKP-MAC's security attributes, and computational overhead, showcasing reduced complexity compared to competing schemes while maintaining resilience against attempts to compromise security features by both individual and colluding actors. Furthermore, our scheme undergoes rigorous formal analysis using Automated Verification of Internet Security Protocols and Applications (A VISP A).