A Markov-Based Model for Information Security Risk Assessment in Healthcare MANETs

• Published in: Information systems frontiers 2019-10, Vol.21 (5), p.959-977
• Main Authors: Das, Saini, Mukhopadhyay, Arunabha, Saha, Debashis, Sadhukhan, Samir
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Business and Management; Control; Data integrity; Health care; Information systems; IT in Business; Management of Computing and Information Systems; Markov chains; Mobile ad hoc networks; Mobile communication systems; Operations Research/Decision Theory; Risk assessment; Risk levels; Systems Theory; Transition probabilities; Wireless networks
• ISSN: 1387-3326; 1572-9419
• DOI: 10.1007/s10796-017-9809-4

Information security breaches are of major concern for healthcare mobile ad-hoc networks (h-MANETs). In this paper, we propose a model that identifies and assesses risk in an h-MANET deployed by a healthcare institution in a disaster-prone region a priori by modeling the possible routes a hacker might follow to compromise a target. Our model proposes a novel method to compute the transition probability of each hop in the h-MANET. Next, it employs Markov theory to compute the maximum and minimum number of hops required to compromise the target for a given source-target pair. It then determines the vulnerability for all the paths comprising minimum to maximum hops only for each pair by computing their overall transition probability. Finally, our model computes the risk associated with each of these paths. Based on the calculated risk level of each path, the management can recommend an appropriate risk mitigation strategy.