Abstract
In this paper, we propose a secure architecture for healthcare wireless sensor networks. After a careful examination of the security requirements and the security threats to healthcare sensor networks, we argue that security measures for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) must take application context in consideration rather than seek security solutions in a one-size-fits-all fashion. We integrate security mechanisms into our architecture for WSN in healthcare applications rather than add-on values after a general WSN architecture. Our secure architecture is unique in that it decouples patient level and system level, each of which possesses drastic differences in security requirements and computation resources. Under such architecture, security schemes/protocols are readily deployed.