Extended chaotic map-based key management for hierarchical access control in e-medicine systems

Hierarchical access control key management is a technique that involves grouping users into several categories such that each group has a distinct level of authority, thereby reducing the inconvenience that users and administrators face in storing and managing keys. The primary objective of the key management scheme is to distribute keys efficiently and manage them dynamically. Several hierarchical access control key management schemes have recently been proposed to protect e-medicine systems' security. However, these schemes often have security vulnerabilities or require significant storage space and computation. As the hospital organizational structure differs from the standard hierarchical structure, the current hierarchical access control scheme cannot fully leverage the original access control scheme's benefits. Recently, enhanced Chebyshev chaotic maps have shown superiority over traditional cryptographic systems that use modular exponent operations, exhibiting semi-group and commutative properties. This study proposes a secure and efficient key management scheme for e-medical systems using enhanced Chebyshev chaotic maps. Compared with related schemes, the proposed scheme addresses previous security limitations and outperforms other schemes in terms of functionality and performance.