MEDIotWALL: Securing Smart Healthcare Environments Through IoT Firewalls

Abstract

IoT technology is transforming the healthcare industry through what is known as the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT), enhancing patient care while simultaneously reducing costs. Nevertheless, it introduces critical security challenges, particularly the risk of jeopardizing patient safety. Existing IoMT security solutions, often limited to proprietary platforms or generic IoT firewalls, frequently lack transparency, scalability, and awareness with clinical regulations. To address these gaps, we present MEDIotWALL, a customized two-tier security architecture tailored for healthcare environments. The system integrates distributed real-time traffic monitoring with AI-driven rule generation, delivering a non-intrusive, centralized, human-supervised, and regulation-aware security framework. Experimental results demonstrate the cost-efficiency and effectiveness of the approach, ensuring robust medical protection while preserving authentication, confidentiality, and integrity of the environment.