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How safe are mHealth systems? Scientist may have an answer

Read time: 2 mins24 Jul 2017

A visit to a doctor for minor ailments may soon be a thing of the past, with rapid rise in medical technologies. Nowadays, a smartphone can help with disease diagnosis and contacting the relevant specialists from around the world, all from the comfort of one’s home. Mobile Healthcare or mHealth has been significantly advanced with the advent of Internet of Things, where sensors can feed live data to specialists, who can monitor patients from miles away. This rapid rise of mHealth has some worried about the security aspects of the software. These fears have been partially allayed by scientists from International Institute of Information Technology, University of  Kentucky and Indian Institute of Information Technology, who have been analyzing the security features of mHealth systems. The researchers analyzed the requirements, issues and threats. Next, based on the features supported, possible attacks and computation and communication costs, the researchers proposed a detailed plan to address the security concerns of these software.  They also take a critical view at the security measures to mhealth systems that have been proposed, while studying the strengths and weaknesses of the proposed security features. Finally, the researchers also identify some challenges which could arise while implementing some of the proposed security features. The study aims at securing the mHealth systems of the future, which are soon poised to become the hospitals of the future.