An Attribute-Based Searchable Encryption Scheme for Non-Monotonic Access Structure

Abstract

Attribute based encryption (ABE) is a widely used technique with tremendous application in cloud computing because it provides fine-grained access control capability. Owing to this property, it is emerging as a popular technique in the area of searchable encryption where the fine-grained access control is used to determine the search capabilities of a user. But, in the searchable encryption schemes developed using ABE it is assumed that the access structure is monotonic which contains AND, OR and threshold gates. Many ABE schemes have been developed for non-monotonic access structure which supports NOT gate, but this is the first attempt to develop a searchable encryption scheme for the same. The proposed scheme results in fast search and generates secret key and search token of constant size and also the ciphertext components are quite fewer than the number of attributes involved. The proposed scheme is proven secure against chosen keyword attack (CKA) in selective security model under Decisional Bilinear Diffie-Hellman (DBDH) assumption.