journal article·2024-10-20Open access

A Novel Cloud-Enabled Cyber Threat Hunting Platform for Evaluating the Cyber Risks Associated with Smart Health Ecosystems

Abdullah Alabdulatif, Navod Neranjan Thilakarathne

Applied Sciences· Volume 14· Issue 20

Abstract

The fast proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices has dramatically altered healthcare, increasing the efficiency and efficacy of smart health ecosystems. However, this expansion has created substantial security risks, as cybercriminals increasingly target IoT devices in order to exploit their weaknesses and relay critical health information. The rising threat landscape poses serious concerns across various domains within healthcare, where the protection of patient information and the integrity of medical devices are paramount. Smart health systems, while offering numerous benefits, are particularly vulnerable to cyber-attacks due to the integration of IoT devices and the vast amounts of data they generate. Healthcare providers, although unable to control the actions of cyber adversaries, can take proactive steps to secure their systems by adopting robust cybersecurity measures, such as strong user authentication, regular system updates, and the implementation of advanced security technologies. This research introduces a groundbreaking approach to addressing the cybersecurity challenges in smart health ecosystems through the deployment of a novel cloud-enabled cyber threat-hunting platform. This platform leverages deception technology, which involves creating decoys, traps, and false information to divert cybercriminals away from legitimate health data and systems. By using this innovative approach, the platform assesses the cyber risks associated with smart health systems, offering actionable recommendations to healthcare stakeholders on how to minimize cyber risks and enhance the security posture of IoT-enabled healthcare solutions. Overall, this pioneering research represents a significant advancement in safeguarding the increasingly interconnected world of smart health ecosystems, providing a promising strategy for defending against the escalating cyber threats faced by the healthcare industry.
Source: crossref · Quality: baseline

Research context

OpenAlex topics: Internet of Things and AI · Network Security and Intrusion Detection · Information and Cyber Security

SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.

Affiliations

Department of Cybersecurity, College of Computer, Qassim University, Buraydah 52571, Saudi Arabia

Department of ICT, Faculty of Technology, University of Colombo, Colombo 00700, Sri Lanka

Funding

Qassim University

References (43)

Show source-provided references
1. Real-Time Medical Data Security Solution for Smart Healthcare10.1109/TII.2022.3217039 ↗
2. Data Security Mechanisms, Approaches, and Challenges for e-Health Smart Systems10.3991/ijoe.v19i02.37069 ↗
3. Butt, S.A., Diaz-Martinez, J.L., Jamal, T., Ali, A., De-La-Hoz-Franco, E., and Shoaib, M. (2019, January 1–4). IoT Smart Health Security Threats. Proceedings of the 2019 19th International Conference on Computational Science and Its Applications (ICCSA), St. Petersburg, Russia.10.1109/ICCSA.2019.000-8 ↗
4. (2024, August 19). Internet of Things [IoT] in Healthcare Market Size & Share, 2032. Available online: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/internet-of-things-iot-in-healthcare-market-102188.
5. (2024, August 19). A Look at the Latest Healthcare IoT Statistics. Available online: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/look-latest-healthcare-iot-statistics-yaddly/.
6. (2024, August 19). “Healthcare Industry: Current Cyber Threats, Vulnerabilities, Recent Attacks, and Solutions”. Available online: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/healthcare-industry-current-cyber-threats-vulnerabilities-7yltf/.
7. (2024, August 19). Cyber Attacks in Healthcare Sector Worldwide by Type 2022|Statista. Available online: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1362863/cyber-attacks-on-healthcare-organizations-worldwide-by-type/.
8. Biswas, S., Chowdhury, C., Acharya, B., and Liu, C.-M. (2022). The Medical Internet of Things: A Review of Intelligent Machine Learning and Deep Learning Applications for Leveraging Healthcare. Internet of Things Based Smart Healthcare: Intelligent and Secure Solutions Applying Machine Learning Techniques, Springer Nature.10.1007/978-981-19-1408-9 ↗
9. Securing smart cities through machine learning: A honeypot-driven approach to attack detection in Internet of Things ecosystems10.1049/smc2.12084 ↗
10. Modelling Medical Devices with Honeypots: A Conceptual Framework10.1007/978-3-031-04826-5_15 ↗
11. A decentralized honeypot for IoT Protocols based on Android devices10.1007/s10207-022-00605-7 ↗
12. The Role of the Internet of Things in Health Care: A Systematic and Comprehensive Study
13. Elhoseny, M., Thilakarathne, N.N., Alghamdi, M.I., Mahendran, R.K., Gardezi, A.A., Weerasinghe, H., and Welhenge, A. (2021). Security and Privacy Issues in Medical Internet of Things: Overview, Countermeasures, Challenges and Future Directions. Sustainability, 13.10.3390/su132111645 ↗
14. Security and Privacy in the Medical Internet of Things: A Review10.1155/2018/5978636 ↗
15. Ghosh, U., Chakraborty, C., Garg, L., and Srivastava, G. (2022). A Review on Security and Privacy of Internet of Medical Things. Intelligent Internet of Things for Healthcare and Industry, Springer International Publishing.10.1007/978-3-030-81473-1 ↗
16. Ranjith, J., and Mahantesh, K. (2019, January 13–14). Privacy and Security issues in Smart Health Care. Proceedings of the 2019 4th International Conference on Electrical, Electronics, Communication, Computer Technologies and Optimization Techniques (ICEECCOT), Mysuru, India.10.1109/ICEECCOT46775.2019.9114681 ↗
17. Srilakshmi, A., Mohanapriya, P., Harini, D., and Geetha, K. (2019, January 21–22). IoT based Smart Health Care System to Prevent Security Attacks in SDN. Proceedings of the 2019 Fifth International Conference on Electrical Energy Systems (ICEES), Chennai, India.10.1109/ICEES.2019.8719236 ↗
18. Security and Privacy in IoT Smart Healthcare10.1109/MIC.2021.3051675 ↗
19. Blockchain and Smart Healthcare Security: A Survey10.1016/j.procs.2020.07.089 ↗
20. A Taxonomy on Smart Healthcare Technologies: Security Framework, Case Study, and Future Directions10.1155/2022/1863838 ↗
21. Medical Cyber–Physical Systems: A Solution to Smart Health and the State of the Art10.1109/TCSS.2021.3122807 ↗
22. Smart healthcare: Challenges and potential solutions using internet of things (IoT) and big data analytics10.1108/PRR-08-2019-0027 ↗
23. Batista, E., Moncusi, M.A., López-Aguilar, P., Martínez-Ballesté, A., and Solanas, A. (2021). Sensors for Context-Aware Smart Healthcare: A Security Perspective. Sensors, 21.10.3390/s21206886 ↗
24. Jaime, F.J., Muñoz, A., Rodríguez-Gómez, F., and Jerez-Calero, A. (2023). Strengthening Privacy and Data Security in Biomedical Microelectromechanical Systems by IoT Communication Security and Protection in Smart Healthcare. Sensors, 23.10.3390/s23218944 ↗
25. Leonard, A.M., Cai, H., Venkatasubramanian, K.K., Ali, M., and Eisenbarth, T. (2016, January 19–21). A honeypot system for wearable networks. Proceedings of the 2016 IEEE 37th Sarnoff Symposium, Newark, NJ, USA.10.1109/SARNOF.2016.7846755 ↗
26. A Security Management Framework for Big Data in Smart Healthcare10.1016/j.bdr.2021.100225 ↗
27. Dowling, S., Schukat, M., and Melvin, H. (2017, January 20–21). A ZigBee honeypot to assess IoT cyberattack behaviour. Proceedings of the 2017 28th Irish Signals and Systems Conference (ISSC), Killarney, Ireland.10.1109/ISSC.2017.7983603 ↗
28. Ibrahim, M., Al-Wadi, A., and Elhafiz, R. (2024). Security Analysis for Smart Healthcare Systems. Sensors, 24.10.3390/s24113375 ↗
29. Newaz, A.I., Sikder, A.K., Rahman, M.A., and Uluagac, A.S. (2019, January 22–25). HealthGuard: A Machine Learning-Based Security Framework for Smart Healthcare Systems. Proceedings of the 2019 Sixth International Conference on Social Networks Analysis, Management and Security (SNAMS), Granada, Spain.10.1109/SNAMS.2019.8931716 ↗
30. (2024, August 27). Secure IoT Gateway, IoT Gateway Device—AWS IoT Core—AWS. Available online: https://aws.amazon.com/iot-core/.
31. (2024, August 27). Fast NoSQL Key-Value Database—Amazon DynamoDB—Amazon Web Services. Available online: https://aws.amazon.com/dynamodb/.
32. (2024, August 26). GitHub—Telekom-Security/Tpotce: T-Pot—The All in One Multi Honeypot Platform. Available online: https://github.com/telekom-security/tpotce.
33. (2024, August 27). T-Pot Version 22.04 Released. Available online: https://github.security.telekom.com/2022/04/honeypot-tpot-22.04-released.html.
34. (2024, August 27). Amazon EC2. Available online: https://aws.amazon.com/pm/ec2/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwz7C2BhDkARIsAA_SZKYMNgGY2aPSeD5QG03nDsRG3AdA3jm0L6wM9GjDRdoc2fZTNvwAHAYaAprPEALw_wcB&trk=c5bb7c01-50e6-4e23-9f8b-b660abf64d04&sc_channel=ps&ef_id=Cj0KCQjwz7C2BhDkARIsAA_SZKYMNgGY2aPSeD5QG03nDsRG3AdA3jm0L6wM9GjDRdoc2fZTNvwAHAYaAprPEALw_wcB:G:s&s_kwcid=AL!4422!3!536457846146!e!!g!!ec2%20hosting%20website!11539707807!112493693037.
35. Surveying Port Scans and Their Detection Methodologies10.1093/comjnl/bxr035 ↗
36. Ananin, E.V., Nikishova, A.V., and Kozhevnikova, I.S. (2017, January 14–16). Port scanning detection based on anomalies. Proceedings of the 2017 Dynamics of Systems, Mechanisms and Machines (Dynamics), Omsk, Russia.10.1109/Dynamics.2017.8239427 ↗
37. Evaluation of the ability of the Shodan search engine to identify Internet-facing industrial control devices10.1016/j.ijcip.2014.03.001 ↗
38. Exploring Shodan from the Perspective of Industrial Control Systems10.1109/ACCESS.2020.2988691 ↗
39. ShoVAT: Shodan-based vulnerability assessment tool for Internet-facing services10.1002/sec.1262 ↗
40. Al-Alami, H., Hadi, A., and Al-Bahadili, H. (2017, January 6–7). Vulnerability scanning of IoT devices in Jordan using Shodan. Proceedings of the 2017 2nd International Conference on the Applications of Information Technology in Developing Renewable Energy Processes & Systems (IT-DREPS), Amman, Jordan.10.1109/IT-DREPS.2017.8277814 ↗
41. (2024, October 10). Network Security Management|AI Network Security Protection. Available online: https://darktrace.com/products/network.
42. (2024, October 10). The CrowdStrike Falcon® Platform. Available online: https://www.crowdstrike.com/platform/.
43. (2024, October 10). Tenable Vulnerability Management|Tenable®. Available online: https://www.tenable.com/products/vulnerability-management.