ADDRESSING KEY MANAGEMENT AND DATA INTEGRITY IN IIOT BASED HEALTHCARE: A BLOCKCHAIN APPROACH USING FERNET ENCRYPTION AND MERKLE ROOT PROOF OF WORK

A blockchain based healthcare system in the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) improves transparency and
interoperability by decentralizing patient data access and storage. It ensures tamper-proof records by enabling
secure and seamless sharing of healthcare information among stakeholders and connected devices. However,
IIoT devices are vulnerable to security issues like unauthorized attacks due to improper key management,
which makes it easy for attackers to steal data. To overcome this issue, the Fernet Encryption Algorithm with
Merkle Root Proof of Work (FEA-MRPoW) is proposed in blockchain-based healthcare systems for IIoT to
increase security by generating strong data encryption which prevents unauthorized access and data
confidentiality. The structure of Merkle root provides integrity of healthcare records whereas PoW protect
against tampering for block validation. Therefore, this integration provides robust performance and ensures
the safety of healthcare data in IIoT environments. The proposed FEA-MRPoW achieves a less encryption
time of 0.298s when the number of attributes is 10 compared to existing methods like the Diagonal Digital
Signature Algorithm (DDSA) with Merkle Patricia Hash Trie (MPHT).