Accountable CP-ABE with Public Verifiability: How to Effectively Protect the Outsourced Data in Cloud

Abstract

Ciphertext-policy attribute-based encryption, denoted by CP-ABE, extends identity based encryption by taking a set of attributes as users’ public key which enables scalable access control over outsourced data in cloud storage services. However, a decryption key corresponding to an attribute set may be owned by multiple users. Then, malicious users are subjectively willing to share their decryption keys for profits. In addition, the authority who issues decryption keys in CP-ABE system is able to generate arbitrary decryption key for any (including unauthorized) user. Key abuses of both malicious users and the authority have been regarded as one of the major obstacles to deploy CP-ABE system in real-world commercial applications. In this paper, we try to solve these two kinds of key abuses in CP-ABE system, and propose two accountable CP-ABE schemes supporting any LSSS realizable access structures. Two proposed accountable CP-ABE schemes allow any third party (with the help of authorities if necessary) to publicly verify the identity of an exposed decryption key, allow an auditor to publicly audit whether a malicious user or authorities should be responsible for an exposed decryption key, and the key abuser can’t deny it. At last, we prove the two schemes can achieve publicly verifiable traceability and accountability.