Analysis of A Lightweight Authentication Protocol for Remote Surgery Applications under the CK - Adversary Model

Abstract

E-health has risen to popularity with the advancement in technology. Technological innovations have made it feasible for doctors around the world to provide healthcare assistance remotely. Medical practitioners perform sensitive surgeries by sitting at different corners of the world. Healthcare is a very delicate field with human lives at stake at all times. The remote devices that are used to perform surgeries need to function accurately and any mishap can claim a life. Thus, only authentic users, in this case the doctors, should be allowed to have control of the robotic surgery devices. Several authentication protocols are presented in the literature to secure critical remote health applications. One such protocol was proposed by Kamil et al. in 2021 for authentication and key agreement between a remote surgeon and robotic arm in tactile Internet environment via a gateway. In this paper, we analyse Kamil et al's protocol and prove that their protocol is not secure against known session specific temporary information (ephemeral secrets) attack and impersonation attack. We also point out some additional security issues, such as weak authentication and traceability. As a result, Kamil et al.'s protocol is not suitable for critical health applications.