Skip to main content

Developing a Novel Digital Forensics Readiness Framework for Wireless Medical Networks Using Specialised Logging

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Cybersecurity in the Age of Smart Societies

Abstract

Wireless Medical Networks (WMNs) have always been a vital component for the treatment and management of chronic diseases. However, the data generated by these networks keeps growing and has become a potential target for criminals seeking to capitalise on its sensitivity and value. Wireless networks also happen to be more vulnerable to attacks compared to wired networks. In the event of such attacks, it becomes really difficult to conduct a digital Forensics investigation. This paper investigates and suggests a proactive approach of digital forensics readiness within wireless medical networks by suggesting specialised monitoring and logging mechanisms. The research first identifies threats to wireless medical networks. It then undertakes a trajectory of a systematic review of previously proposed digital forensics frameworks and identifies challenges. Finally, it proposes a conceptual framework for Digital Forensics Readiness (DFR) for wireless medical networks. The paper, therefore, makes a novel contribution to the field of digital forensics. It suggests a more streamlined, robust, and decentralised framework that is partially underpinned by blockchain technology at the evidence management layer. The framework contributes to the enforcement of evidential data integrity whilst also securing wireless medical networks.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 139.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 179.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 179.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Albesher A (2019) IoT in health-care: recent advances in the development of smart cyber-physical ubiquitous environments. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331642487_IoT_in_Health-care_Recent_Advances_in_the_Development_of_Smart_Cyber-Physical_Ubiquitous_Environments. Last accessed 19 July 2022

  2. Atlam H, Alenezi A, Alassafi A, Wills G (2018) Blockchain with internet of things: benefits, challenges, and future directions. Available at: https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/421529/1/Published_Version.pdf. Last accessed 19 July 2022

  3. Belchior R, Correia M, Vasconcelos A (2019) JusticeChain: using blockchain to protect justice logs. In: Lecture notes in computer science (online) pp 318–325. Available at: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-030-33246-4_21. Last accessed 19 July 2022

  4. Bhavnani P, Narula J, Sengupta P (2016) Mobile technology and the digitization of healthcare. Eur Heart J 37(18):1428–1438. https://doi.org/10.1093/eurheartj/ehv770

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Bsigroup.com (2014) BS 10008 Electronic information management (online) Available at: https://www.bsigroup.com/en-GB/bs-10008-electronic-information-management/. Last accessed 19 July 2022

  6. Burgess M (2020) Hackers are targeting hospitals crippled by coronavirus. Available at https://www.wired.co.uk/article/coronavirus-hackers-cybercrime-phishing. Last accessed 19 July 2022

  7. CDC (2019) About chronic diseases (online) Available at: https://www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/about/index.htm. Last accessed 19 July 2022

  8. Cabinet Office (2016) Security policy framework (online) GOV.UK. Available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/security-policy-framework/hmg-security-policy-framework. Last accessed 19 July 2022

  9. Cellan-Jones R (2020) Coronavirus: England's test and trace programme breaks GDPR data law. The BBC. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-53466471. Last accessed 19 July 2022

  10. Cisco (2020) What is a network controller? (online) Available at: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/enterprise-networks/what-is-a-network-controller.html. Last accessed 19 July 2022

  11. Collinsdictionary.com (2019) Definition of scenario (online) Available at: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/scenario. Last accessed 19 July 2022

  12. Corera G (2020) Coronavirus: US accuses China of hacking coronavirus research. The BBC. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-52656656. Accessed 21 July 2020

  13. Cusack B, Kyaw A (2012) Forensic readiness for wireless medical systems. Available at https://ro.ecu.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1107&context=adf. Last accessed 19 July 2022

  14. DWP Forensic Readiness Policy (2018) DWP forensic readiness policy Available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/886724/dwp-forensic-readiness-policy.pdf. Last accessed 19 July 2022

  15. Davis J (2019) The 10 biggest healthcare data breaches of 2019, So far. Available at https://healthitsecurity.com/news/the-10-biggest-healthcare-data-breaches-of-2019-so-far. Last accessed 19 July 2022

  16. Ehlinger S (2017) Former employee reportedly steals mental health data on 28,434 Bexar County patients. The San Antonio Express-News. Available at: https://www.expressnews.com/business/local/article/Former-employee-reportedly-steals-mental-health-12405113.php. Last accessed 19 July 2022

  17. Endicott-Popovsky B, Frincke D, Taylor C (2007) A theoretical framework for organizational network forensic readiness. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/42803345_A_Theoretical_Framework_for_Organizational_Network_Forensic_Readiness. Last accessed 19 July 2022

  18. England.nhs.uk. (no date) NHS England. Interoperability (online) Available at https://www.england.nhs.uk/digitaltechnology/connecteddigitalsystems/interoperability/. Last accessed 19 July 2022

  19. Europa.eu. (2020) CORDIS|European commission (online) Available at: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/732907. Last accessed 19 July 2022

  20. Furneaux N (2018) Investigating cryptocurrencies: understanding the technology. Wiley, IN. Last accessed 19 July 2022

    Google Scholar 

  21. Gillum R (2013) From papyrus to the electronic tablet: a brief history of the clinical medical record with lessons for the digital age. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amjmed.2013.03.024

  22. Halperin D, Heydt-Benjamin T, Ransford B, Clark S, Defend B, Morgan W, Fu K, Kohno T, Maisel W (2008) Pacemakers and implantable cardiac defibrillators: software radio attacks and zero-power defenses. Available at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1067&context=cs_faculty_pubs. Last accessed 19 July 2022

    Google Scholar 

  23. Harbawi M, Varol A (2017) An improved digital evidence acquisition model for the Internet of Things forensic I: a theoretical framework. In: 2017 5th international symposium on digital forensic and security (ISDFS). https://doi.org/10.1109/ISDFS.2017.7916508

  24. Hashed Health. (2020). About. (online) Available at: https://hashedhealth.com/about/ (Last accessed: 19 July 2022).

  25. ISACA (2014) Importance of forensic readiness. Available at: https://www.isaca.org/resources/isaca-journal/past-issues/2014/importance-of-forensic-readiness. Last accessed 19 July 2022

  26. Ico.org.uk. (2019) Special category data (online) Available at: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protection/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/lawful-basis-for-processing/special-category-data/. Last accessed 19 July 2022

  27. Iso.org. (2020) (online) Available at: https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso-iec:27043:ed-1:v1:en. Last accessed 19 July 2022

  28. Karm A (2019) Estonia–the digital republic secured by blockchain estonia -the digital republic secured by blockchain Estonia-the digital republic secured by blockchain PwC 1 (online) Available at: https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/services/legal/tech/assets/estonia-the-digital-republic-secured-by-blockchain.pdf. Last accessed 19 July 2022

  29. Kebande V, Venter H (2014) A cloud forensic readiness model using a botnet as a service. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Natalie_Walker4/publication/263617788_Proceedings_of_the_International_Conference_on_Digital_Security_and_Forensics_DigitalSec2014/links/0f31753b5cd085c06a000000/Proceedings-of-the-International-Conference-on-Digital-Security-and-Forensics-DigitalSec2014.pdf#page=25. Last accessed 19 July 2022

  30. Komperda T (2012) Virtualization security [online]. Available at: https://resources.infosecinstitute.com/topic/virtualization-security-2/. Last accessed 19 July 2022

  31. Kumkar V, Tiwari A, Tiwari P, Gupta A, Shrawne S (2012) Vulnerabilities of wireless security protocols (WEP and WPA2). Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/266005431_Vulnerabilities_of_Wireless_Security_protocols_WEP_and_WPA2. Last accessed 19 July 2022

  32. Kyaw A, Cusack B, Lutui R (2019) Digital forensic readiness in wireless medical systems. In: 2019 29th international telecommunication networks and applications conference (ITNAC). Auckland, New Zealand, pp 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1109/ITNAC46935.2019.9078005

  33. Lenk W (2020) Wireless mobile medical devices. Available at: https://sites.tufts.edu/eeseniordesignhandbook/2015/wireless-mobile-medical-devices/. Last accessed 19 July 2022

  34. NHS Digital (2018) Protecting patient data—NHS digital (online) Available at: https://digital.nhs.uk/services/national-data-opt-out/understanding-the-national-data-opt-out/protecting-patient-data. Last accessed 19 July 2022

  35. NHS services hit by cyber-attack (2017) BBC news (online). Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-39899646. Last accessed 19 July 2022

  36. National Cancer Institute. (2011). NCI Dictionary of Cancer Terms. (online) Available at: https://www.cancer.gov/publications/dictionaries/cancer-terms/def/electronic-medical-record. (Last accessed: 19 July 2022)

  37. National Institute of Standards and Technology (2006) Guide to integrating forensic techniques into incident response: publication 800–86. Available at: https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/Legacy/SP/nistspecialpublication800-86.pdf. Last accessed 19 July 2022

  38. Neuburger J, Choy W, Milewski K (2020) Smart contracts: best practices. (online) Available at: https://prfirmpwwwcdn0001.azureedge.net/prfirmstgacctpwwwcdncont0001/uploads/dc2c188a1be58c8c9bb8c8babc91bbac.pdf. Last accessed 19 July 2022

  39. Nieles M, Dempsey K, Pillitteri VY (2017) An introduction to information security. Available at: https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/SpecialPublications/NIST.SP.800-12r1.pdf. Last accessed 19 July 2022

  40. OpenLedger Insights (2019) What are consortium blockchains, and what purpose do they serve? (online) Available at: https://openledger.info/insights/consortium-blockchains/. Last accessed 19 July 2022

  41. Park S, Akatyev N, Jang Y, Hwang J, Kim D, Yu W, Shin H, Han C, Kim J (2018) A comparative study on data protection legislations and government standards to implement digital forensic readiness as mandatory requirement. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.diin.2018.01.012

  42. Pourmajidi W, Miranskyy A (2018) Logchain: blockchain-assisted log storage (online) IEEE Xplore. Available at: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8457918. Last accessed 19 July 2022

  43. Protenus (2021) 2021 breach barometer (online) Available at: https://www.protenus.com/resources/2021-breach-barometer/Last accessed 19 July 2022

  44. Radcliffe J (2011) Hacking medical devices for fun and insulin: breaking the human scada system. Available at: https://cs.uno.edu/~dbilar/BH-US-2011/materials/Radcliffe/BH_US_11_Radcliffe_Hacking_Medical_Devices_WP.pdf. Last accessed 19 July 2022

  45. Rahman N, Glisson W, Yang Y, Choo K (2016) Forensic by-design framework for cyber-physical cloud systems. EEE Cloud Computing 1(3):50–59

    Article  Google Scholar 

  46. Rahman A, Ahmad R, Ramli S (2014) Forensics readiness for Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) system (online) IEEE Xplore. Available at: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6778944. Last accessed 19 July 2022

  47. Raju B, Geethakumari G (2016) An advanced forensic readiness model for the cloud environment. In: 2016 international conference on computing, communication and automation (ICCCA). Noida https://doi.org/10.1109/CCAA.2016.7813819.

  48. Rowlingson R (2004) A ten step process for forensic readiness. Available at: https://www.utica.edu/academic/institutes/ecii/publications/articles/A0B13342-B4E0-1F6A-156F501C49CF5F51.pdf. Last accessed 19 July 2022

  49. Ryckaert V (2019) Hackers held patient data ransom, so Greenfield hospital system paid $50,000, The Indianapolis Star. Available at: https://eu.indystar.com/story/news/crime/2018/01/17/hancock-health-paid-50-000-hackers-who-encrypted-patient-files/1040079001/. Last accessed 19 July 2022

  50. SecureW2 (2020) WPA2-enterprise and 802.1x simplified. [online] Available at: https://www.securew2.com/solutions/wpa2-enterprise-and-802-1x-simplified. Last accessed 19 July 2022

  51. Somasundaram R, Thirugnanam M (2020) Review of security challenges in healthcare internet of things. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11276-020-02340-0

  52. Studio Fiorenzi Security & Forensics (2017) GDPR & Forensics Readiness-English (online) Available at: https://www.slideshare.net/AlessandroFiorenzi/gdpr-forensics-readiness-english. Last accessed 19 July 2022

  53. Tan J (2001) Forensic readiness (online) CiteSeer. Available at: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.480.6094&rep=rep1&type=pdf. Accessed 04 Aug 2020

  54. Thompson E (2019) Three ways smart contracts are used in healthcare. Available at: https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/three-ways-smart-contracts-used-120013678.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAB2Bc57lNL-hL55sY-VBV-schgWWyDxqgEOx40lhZSWQDfis2VIALKJ-d-AyHK6GEGXHag1SY5Lpr09EQntC-IxsCLTx75ejZz3lsqTMRxxUEBHE-HFHfCcbNsPNsubeQtdYLpU1btexvS7tgTmzPVSC-l-rrTbTDonRC1FNHMSR. Last accessed 19 July 2022

  55. Tian Z, Li M, Qiu M, Sun Y, Su S (2019) Block-DEF: a secure digital evidence framework using blockchain. Information Sciences (online). Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002002551930297X?via%3Dihub. Last accessed 19 July 2022

  56. Vidal C, Choo K (2015) ‘The cloud security ecosystem. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/book/9780128015957/the-cloud-security-ecosystem. Last accessed 19 July 2022

  57. Wallace K (2020) Configuring security—wireless networking essential training video tutorial|LinkedIn Learning [online]. Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/learning/wireless-networking-essential-training/configuring-security-2?u=42408908. Accessed 30 March 2021

  58. World Health Organisation (2011) mHealth, New horizons for health through mobile technologies. Available at: https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/44607. Last accessed 19 July 2022

  59. Zheng Z, Xie S, Dai H, Chen X, Wang H (2017) An overview of blockchain technology: architecture, consensus, and future trends. In: 2017 IEEE international congress on big data (BigData Congress). (online) Available at: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8029379. Last accessed 19 July 2022

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Carlisle George .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Mpungu, C., George, C., Mapp, G. (2023). Developing a Novel Digital Forensics Readiness Framework for Wireless Medical Networks Using Specialised Logging. In: Jahankhani, H. (eds) Cybersecurity in the Age of Smart Societies. Advanced Sciences and Technologies for Security Applications. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20160-8_12

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20160-8_12

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-20159-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-20160-8

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics