Quantum-safe mutual authentication scheme for IoHT using blockchain

Abstract

The Internet of Health Things (IoHT) has revolutionized healthcare by enabling seamless communication and interaction among medical devices. However, it faces critical security challenges, including threats to sensitive medical data and the vulnerability of traditional cryptographic methods to quantum computing. To address these issues, we propose a novel quantum-safe mutual authentication scheme utilizing a module lattice-based blockchain architecture. The proposed method ensures secure and decentralized interactions among healthcare participants, including doctors, patients, and cloud servers, while safeguarding data integrity and privacy against quantum threats. Formal security analysis using the Real-Or-Random (ROR) model, ProVerif tool and informal assessments confirm its resistance to diverse attacks, such as man-in-the-middle, replay, and stolen device attacks. Performance evaluations reveal significant reductions in average latency, with a decrease from 31.7 seconds to 9.1 seconds across iterations, a 62% increase in computation throughput, and an improvement in transaction processing efficiency by 36%. Additionally, the framework enhances data throughput by 40%, demonstrating its effectiveness for secure, efficient, and quantum-safe IoHT systems.