A Comparative Study of Homomorphic Encryption Schemes Using Microsoft SEAL

Abstract

Fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) technology is a method of encrypting data that allows arbitrary calculations to be computed. Machine learning (ML) and many other applications are relevant to FHE such as Cloud Computing, Secure Multi-Party, and Data Aggregation. Only the authenticated user has the authority to decrypt the ciphertext and understand its meaning, as encrypted data can be computed and processed to produce an encrypted output. Homomorphic encryption uses arithmetic circuits that focus on addition and multiplication, allowing the user to add and multiply integers while encrypted. This paper discusses the performance of the Brakerski-Fan-Vercauteren scheme (BFV) and Cheon, Kim, Kim, and Song (CKKS) scheme using one of the most important libraries of FHE “Microsoft SEAL”, by applying certain arithmetic operations and observing the time consumed for every function applied in each scheme and the noise budget after every operation. The results obtained show the difference between the two schemes when applying the same operation and the number of sequential operations each can handle.