Early adoption of Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) are enhancing the healthcare sector in all directions. Though the advances are adding advantages to the existing systems, the security and privacy of medical data remain a challenge. The increase in IoMT and mobile healthcare devices presence on untrusted networks can make the situation more complicated for healthcare system users. Moreover, they are pushing critical data to centralized locations like cloud, where the patient lacking control on his data. In this regard, a secure IoT framework is desirable which is capable of preserving the integrity and confidentiality of the medical data. Due to this, we proposed a novel architecture which leverages blockchain, IPFS, zero-knowledge protocols, and functional encryption technologies to provide decentralised healthcare system privacy and security. The proposed system helps the healthcare system administrators maintain data confidentiality, availability, integrity, and transparency over an untrusted peer-to-peer network without any human interference. Moreover, the system eliminates the requirement for a centralised server for functional encryption operations using hybrid computing paradigms. Finally, the proposed system suggests a novel mechanism to minimise the latency in data sharing over the network without compromising data security and privacy. To describe the working principle of this architecture a logical analysis is carried out which shows that the system is capable of providing the desired security and privacy.

The Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) technology's fast advancements aided smart healthcare systems to a larger extent. IoMT devices, on the other hand, rely on centralized processing and storage systems because of their limited computational and storage capacity. The reliance is susceptible to a single point of failure (SPoF) and erodes the user control over their medical data. In addition, Cloud models result in communication delays, which slow down the system's overall reaction time. To overcome these issues a decentralized distributed smart healthcare system is proposed that eliminates the SPoF and third-party control over healthcare data. Additionally, the proposed Fortified-Chain 2.0 uses a blockchain-based selective sharing mechanism with a mutual authentication technique to solve the issues, such as data privacy, security, and trust management in decentralized peer-to-peer healthcare systems. Also, we suggested a hybrid computing paradigm to deal with latency, computational, and storage constraints. A novel distributed machine learning (ML) module named random forest support vector machine (RFSVM) also embedded into the Fortified-Chain 2.0 system to automate patient health monitoring. In the RFSVM module, a random forest (RF) is used to select an optimal set of features from patients data in real-time environment and also support vector machine (SVM) is used to perform the decision making tasks. The proposed Fortified-Chain 2.0 works on a private blockchain-based distributed decentralised storage system (DDSS) that improves the system-level transparency, integrity, and traceability. Fortified-Chain 2.0 outperformed the existing Fortified-Chain in terms of low latency, high throughput, and availability with the help of a mutual authentication method.

The recent COVID-19 outbreak highlighted the requirement for a more sophisticated healthcare system and real-time data analytics in the pandemic mitigation process. Moreover, real-time data plays a crucial role in the detection and alerting process. Combining smart healthcare systems with accurate real-time information about medical service availability, vaccination, and how the pandemic is spreading can directly affect the quality of life and economy. The existing architecture models are become inadequate in handling the pandemic mitigation process using real-time data. The present models are server-centric and controlled by a single party, where the management of confidentiality, integrity, and availability (CIA) of data is doubtful. Therefore, a decentralised user-centric model is necessary, where the CIA of user data is assured. In this paper, we have suggested a decentralized blockchain-based pandemic detection and assistance system (iBlock). The iBlock uses robust technologies like hybrid computing and IPFS to support system functionality. A pseudo-anonymous personal identity is introduced using H-PCS and cryptography for anonymous data sharing. The distributed data management module guarantees data CIA, security, and privacy using cryptography mechanisms. Furthermore, it delivers useful intelligent information in the form of suggestions and alerts to assist the users. Finally, the iBlock reduces stress on healthcare infrastructure and workers by providing accurate predictions and early warnings using AI/ML.

The recent COVID-19 pandemic has underlined the significance of digital health record management systems for pandemic mitigation. Existing smart healthcare systems (SHSs) fail to preserve system-level medical record openness and privacy while including mitigating measures such as testing, tracking, and treating (3T). In addition, current centralised compute architectures are susceptible to denial of service assaults because of DDoS or bottleneck difficulties. In addition, these current SHSs are susceptible to leakage of sensitive data, unauthorised data modification, and non-repudiation. In centralised models of the current system, a third party controls the data, and data owners may not have total control over their data. The Coviblock, a novel, decentralised, blockchain-based smart healthcare assistance system, is proposed in this study to support medical record privacy and security in the pandemic mitigation process without sacrificing system usability. The Coviblock ensures system-level openness and trustworthiness in the administration and use of medical records. Edge computing and the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) are recommended as part of a decentralised distributed storage system (DDSS) to reduce the latency and the cost of data operations on the blockchain (IPFS). Using blockchain ledgers, the DDSS ensures system-level transparency and event traceability in the administration of medical records. A distributed, decentralised resource access control mechanism (DDRAC) is also proposed to guarantee the secrecy and privacy of DDSS data. To confirm the Coviblock’s real-time behaviour on an Ethereum test network, a prototype of the technology is constructed and examined. To demonstrate the benefits of the proposed system, we compare it to current cloud-based health cyber–physical systems (H-CPSs) with blockchain. According to the experimental research, the Coviblock maintains the same level of security and privacy as existing H-CPSs while performing considerably better. Lastly, the suggested system greatly reduces latency in operations, such as 32 milliseconds (ms) to produce a new record, 29 ms to update vaccination data, and 27 ms to validate a given certificate through the DDSS.

The COVID-19 outbreak highlighted the smart healthcare infrastructure requirement to speed up vaccination and treatment. Present vaccination supply chain models are fragmented in nature, and they are suitable for a pandemic like COVID-19. Most of these vaccination supply chain models are cloud-centric and depend on humans. Due to this, the transparency in the supply chain and vaccination process is questionable. Moreover, we con't trace where the vaccination programs are facing issues in real-time. Furthermore, traditional supply chain models are vulnerable to a single point of failure and lack people-centric service capabilities. This paper has proposed a novel supply chain model for COVID-19 using robust technologies such as Blockchain and the Internet of Things. Besides, it automates the entire vaccination supplication chain, and it records management without compromising data integrity. We have evaluated our proposed model using Ethereum based decentralized application (DApp) to showcase its real-time capabilities. The DApp contains two divisions to deal with internal (intra) and worldwide (inter) use cases. From the system analysis, it is clear that it provides digital records integrity, availability, and system scalability by eliminating a single point of failure. Finally, the proposed system eliminates human interference in digital record management, which is prone to errors and alternation.

Globalization has made supply chain business management more complicated over time. The existence of intermediary parties in the supply chain causes major issues like product genuineness, as well as transparency in product quality and quantity information management, etc. Traditional supply chain models depend on intermediaries and also are cloud-based systems. It is very much difficult to track the data state changes across the supply chain's larger network. Latest technologies such as blockchain and the Internet of Things (IoT) play a critical role in bringing transparency to supply chain management. In this paper, we have proposed FarmersChain, a novel decentralized data-centric smart supply chain management system based on blockchain and IoT technologies. In our proposed system FarmerChain, smart contracts are used to automate digital agreements. It was examined and analyzed on a local testbed to demonstrate its potential. Based on the system analysis and testing, we discovered that the proposed supply chain management is feasible in a real-time environment without the interference of a third party and middleman. It also ensures the product's quality and quantity information status is accurate, accessible, and transparent.

The rapid developments in the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) help the smart healthcare systems to deliver more sophisticated real-time services. At the same time, IoMT also raises many privacy and security issues. Also, the heterogeneous nature of these devices makes it challenging to develop a common security standard solution. Furthermore, the existing cloud-centric IoMT healthcare systems depend on cloud computing for electrical health records (EHR) and medical services, which is not suggestible for a decentralized IoMT healthcare systems. In this article, we have proposed a blockchain-based novel architecture that provides a decentralized EHR and smart-contract-based service automation without compromising with the system security and privacy. In this architecture, we have introduced the hybrid computing paradigm with the blockchain-based distributed data storage system to overcome blockchain-based cloud-centric IoMT healthcare system drawbacks, such as high latency, high storage cost, and single point of failure. A decentralized selective ring-based access control mechanism is introduced along with device authentication and patient records anonymity algorithms to improve the proposed system's security capabilities. We have evaluated the latency and cost effectiveness of data sharing on the proposed system using Blockchain. Also, we conducted a logical system analysis, which reveals that our architecture-based security and privacy mechanisms are capable of fulfilling the requirements of decentralized IoMT smart healthcare systems. Experimental analysis proves that our fortified-chain-based H-CPS needs insignificant storage and has a response time in the order of milliseconds as compared to traditional centralized H-CPS while providing decentralized automated access control, security, and privacy.

Smart healthcare monitoring systems provide better healthcare service by improving the availability and transparency of health data. However, it also posses serious threats to data security and privacy. As medical internet of things (IoT) are connected to other devices through various networks that provide a suitable attack surface for the intruders. Further, the health data are sensitive, and any breach in security may lead to wrong treatment or compromising the privacy of the patients. In this regard, a secure IoT frame is desirable, which is capable of preserving the integrity and confidentiality of the medical data. In this paper, we have proposed a novel architecture which leverages the blockchain technology to enhance the security and privacy of IoT for healthcare applications. In the proposed architecture called smart healthcare system for patients in ICU (SHPI), critical data is processed in edge computing which is located inside the hospital to reduce the communication latency. In order to provide tramper-proof medical records and data confidentiality SHPI uses blockchain technology and cryptographic methods respectively. Also, a data accessing token system is introduced to separate the group of users based on their roles. This system utilizes smart contracts to record every event for providing transparency in medical activities. In order to describe the working principles a logical analysis is carried out, that shows the system is capable of providing the desired security and privacy.