A Blockchain framework for Enhancing NB-IoT Security and Authentication: Health Monitoring System as a case

Abstract

In healthcare, Smart Health Monitoring (SHM) technologies have changed the way in which
patients are treated. The integration of SHM systems with Narrow Band Internet of things (NBIoT)
allows covering additional categories of IoT devices and services in addition to improving
significantly the capacity and the consumed power of the user devices, especially in deep
coverage. However, new challenges are raised from such integration including: authentication,
effective data sharing, security, scalable management and coordination of data transferred
between the NB-IoT devices and the cloud. Thus, this work introduces a Blockchain
framework, applied to a health monitoring system that supports patients in villages and rural
areas, for enhancing NB-IoT security and authentication. The framework consists of five main
layers: (1) The NB-IoT health monitoring devices; (2) The device gateway; (3) the master
nodes (edges); (4) the blockchain layer; (5) the off-chain layer. On-chain and off-chain layers
are leveraged in the proposal as on-chain data includes all required information to govern the
proposed smart contracts embedded inside the blockchain for improving the security, the
authentication, and providing effective data access while simultaneously preserving data
integrity. The off-chain data is a cloud-based database utilized for storing raw NB-IoT health
data received from authenticated master nodes.