Security and privacy in cloud-assisted wireless wearable communications: Challenges, solutions, and future directions

Cloud-assisted wireless wearable communications have been increasingly pervasive with the profound development of sensor, wireless communication, and cloud computing technologies, in addition to the wide adoption of e-health, location-based service, and mobile smart communities. In this article we mainly focus on the goals and tactics of privacy-preserving data aggregation in cloud-assisted wireless wearable communications. With respect to the unique security and privacy requirements and the efficiency consideration for resource-constrained wearable devices, we identify the inappropriateness of secure multiparty computation and fully homomorphic encryption and give new generalized solutions to tackle the challenging issue of efficient privacy-preserving data aggregation and outsourced computation in wireless wearable communications. Last but not least, a series of interesting open problems are suggested along with potential solutions to cast light on the research in this emerging area.