Enabling Secure and Effective Biomedical Data Sharing through Cyberinfrastructure Gateways

Abstract

Scientific cyberinfrastructures promise solutions to computational challenges with rich resources; they embrace collaborative workflows in which users can access and share scientific data and computing resources to perform research and education tasks, which catalyze scientific discovery. The Dynaswap project reports on developing a coherently integrated and trustworthy holistic secure workflow protection architecture for cyberinfrastructures which can be used on virtual machines deployed through cyberinfrastructure (CI) services such as JetStream. This service creates a user-friendly cloud environment designed to give researchers access to interactive computing and data analysis resources on demand. The Dynaswap cybersecurity architecture supports roles, role hierarchies, and data hierarchies, as well as dynamic changes of roles and hierarchical relations within the scientific infrastructure. Dynaswap combines existing cutting-edge security frameworks (including an Authentication Authorization-Accounting framework, Multi-Factor Authentication, Secure Digital Provenance, and Blockchain) with advanced security tools (e.g., Biometric-Capsule, Cryptography-based Hierarchical Access Control, and Dual-level Key Management). The security technologies have been developed and integrated with the Open Medical Record System for enhanced security purposes and delivering a secure scientific infrastructure, which allows researchers, educators, practitioners, and students to remotely access and share sensitive data, computing resources, and workflows with flexibility and convenience while also having the highest security and privacy protection. The CI is being validated in life-science research environments and in the education settings of Health Informatics.