Secure query processing with data interoperability in a cloud database environment

Abstract

We address security issues in a cloud database system which employs the DBaaS model. In such a model, a data owner (DO) exports its data to a cloud database service provider (SP). To provide data security, sensitive data is encrypted by the DO before it is uploaded to the SP. Existing encryption schemes, however, are only partially homomorphic in the sense that each of them was designed to allow one specific type of computation to be done on encrypted data. These existing schemes cannot be integrated to answer real practical queries that involve operations of different kinds. We propose and analyze a secure query processing system (SDB) on relational tables and a set of elementary operators on encrypted data that allow data interoperability, which allows a wide range of SQL queries to be processed by the SP on encrypted information. We prove that our encryption scheme is secure against two types of threats and that it is practically efficient.