Uplifting Healthcare Cyber Resilience with a Multi-access Edge Computing Zero-Trust Security Model

Abstract

Telemedicine over the Internet of Things has the potential to generate a massive amount of data. To process the data an increase in transmission, computing, storage and analysis capability is required. Utilising cloud computing to handle the increase in data could introduce high latency and increasing storage costs. Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) has become an essential component of the next generation 5G networks that provide improved reliability and low latency. This paper proposes a model that will enable MEC operators to collect information from the environment that can be analysed before making trust decisions. Trust is achieved by continuously applying authentication and authorisation while maintaining robust management practices to drive the trust decision process. The proposed model trusts the User Equipment (UE) only after verifying user credentials, which are converted into ciphertexts. The integration of different technologies such as computers, medical devices, and telecommunications will significantly improve the efficiency of patient treatment, reduce the cost of health care and improve privacy and security. Trust decisions are based on the trust posture criteria, existing and potential trust relationships, and the MEC environment trust state. The research outcomes show that this approach provides a positive improvement whilst establishing trust.