Real-time encryption and authentication of medical video streams on FPGA

Abstract

This work presents an FPGA-based solution for the encryption and authentication of video streams of surgeries. The most important is minimal latency. To achieve this, a block cipher with an authenticated mode of operation is used. We choose to use AES128 with Galois/Counter Mode (GCM), because the this mode of operation is patent-free and it allows for random read access. This solution minimizes the overhead on the existing critical path to a single XOR operation. Our solution supports the broadcasting of the video stream. When a new receiver announces itself, it should receive the active keys of the sender. Therefore, a key transport protocol is used to establish a key between the sender and the announcing receiver. A proof-of-concept implementation of the proposed solution has been implemented and tested. While the complete video stream is encrypted and authenticated, the demonstrator confirms that the added latency, which is around 23 s, could not be noticed by the human eye. Random read access and the key establishment protocol provide a flexible solution.