Zero-Trust Blockchain-Enabled Secure Next-Generation Healthcare Communication Network

Conventional security architectures and models are considered single-network architecture solutions, which assume that devices authenticated within the network are implicitly trusted. However, such an approach is unsuitable for next-generation networks (NGNs). Zero-trust security was introduced to overcome these challenges using context-aware, dynamic, and intelligent authentication schemes. This paper proposes a novel zero-trust blockchain-enabled framework for secure next-generation healthcare communication network (HCN). The proposed framework integrates zero-trust and blockchain to provide a decentralized, secure, and intelligent solution for healthcare communication in NGNs. The system model comprises three components: HCN user identity modeling, blockchain and risk assessment-based access control, and dynamic trust gateway. The user identity modeling component utilizes attribute-based user behavior trajectory features, while the access control component leverages smart contracts-based risk assessment. The dynamic trust gateway component employs a consensus mechanism to achieve dynamic gateway switching and enhance network resilience. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed framework achieves 31% lower calculation delays, 3% higher trust values, and 3% better attack detection accuracy compared to best baseline methods. It also exhibits a 2% improvement in access control granularity and maintains 95% network throughput under various failure scenarios.