RFID SECURITY IN HEALTHCARE USING HYBRID ENCRYPTION

Abstract

A huge revolution has occurred in Radio frequency identification (RFID) technologies during the past decades.  More vendors are involved and have invested in this technology which promises wholesale changes across a broad spectrum of business activities. Data security is a key area in RFID usage because the users of the system must be assured of their data’s security.  The increased focus on patient safety in hospitals has yielded a flood of new technologies and tools seeking to improve the quality of patient care. However, it is important to protect patient confidentiality as many medical conditions are stigmatized and disclosure could result in personal or financial loss. Encryption algorithms have been used since a long time to keep secret data safe from intruders.  These algorithms are generally improved based on drawbacks of earlier algorithms.  The focus of this paper is the implementation of a hybrid cryptographic algorithm.  The algorithm is designed by amalgamation of two cryptographic algorithms AES and Elgamal. Performance evaluation of the existing and proposed algorithms was done on the parameters of security, encryption time and decryption time.  Based on our analysis, the new hybrid encryption algorithm (CHE) has a better performance with respect to the security of patients’ records and the confidentiality of their records is high.