A Hierarchical Security Solution for Medical Image Transmissions

Abstract

Security in medical data communications through the open network is one of the greatest problems in modern health information systems. However, little attention has been given in last few years to solve this security problem. In this paper we propose a hierarchical security solution based on watermarking and cryptographic tools. We use lossless watermarking technique to hide confidential patient information inside the medical image and to get the exact copy of the original image when necessary. In addition, we use hash of the original image as a part of watermark to ensure integrity, and public key cryptography to maintain security services like authentication, non-repudiation, and confidentiality. To avoid the cost of establishing Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) we propose hospital authority to act as local Trusted Third Party (TTP) and Diffie-Hellman key exchange protocol to establish secret session key. Only software tools are required to implement this proposed security solution.