Block-MariAuth: Blockchain and PUF Based Authentication Protocol for NTN Assisted Telemedicine Drones in Medical Healthcare 5.0

Use of drones has become essential in environments that are designed to respond to emergency areas. Non-terrestrial networks (NTNs) are able to support seamless mobility without incurring extra energy consumption. Telemedicine drones connected with NTNs are highly suitable for the healthcare environment to serve in disaster areas. To secure communication in NTN-assisted telemedicine in Healthcare 5.0, we enhance and analyze the performance of the designed authentication protocol MariAuth, which is termed as Block-MariAuth owing to the integration of a blockchain-based distributed storage to store cryptographic primitives and other sensitive information. The proposed protocol employed Physical Unclonable Function (PUF) to ensure secure communication and provide physical tamper-proof features in NTN-assisted telemedicine drone networks. Comprehensive security and performance analyses confirm that Block-MariAuth is much more secure and efficient compared with other schemes. Both informal and formal security analyses are conducted by applying the Random or Real (ROR) model and the simulation tool Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications (AVISPA), which validate the security features of Block-MariAuth. The proposed protocol securely defends against known attacks (i.e., man-in-the-middle, node tampering, replay, impersonation, cloning). Furthermore, the computational and communication costs of Block-MariAuth achieve reductions of approximately 72% and 63%, respectively. Finally, a state-of-the-art comparison analysis is provided, including the limitations of the proposed study and future planning.